


Initial

by inexorablydrawn



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, And A Touch Of Angst, F/M, Mostly Fluff, Now to be completed, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Surprisingly not intended to be Rey Kenobi, awkward bathing, background Finn/Rose, kinda has a plot, slowish burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2019-10-20 06:35:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 38,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17617349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inexorablydrawn/pseuds/inexorablydrawn
Summary: A Soulmate AU in which you are born with the initials of your soulmate marked on the nape of your neck.  Easy enough, right? Except for two people who don't use their real names.--Former One Shot that is now to be completed





	1. Prologue Part 1

He stuck out like a sore thumb. He didn’t belong in a place like this. The way he sauntered in, the way he was dressed, the way he scowled, he certainly looked like he had planned to be anywhere but here. That made him an easy target. The man was hunched over the bar, face propped up by his elbows, staring down at a bowl of some sort of grits dish.He clearly wasn’t supposed to be here. 

She watched him from the back of the diner for a few minutes. It was a dirty old place, but it was the only place she could afford to eat most nights since the owner had a soft spot for her.The old woman would let her take scraps of leftovers for free, in exchange for some help with the dishes after a busy night.It worked for the both of them. 

But this _man_. 

This man didn’t belong here.Most customers were just as filthy as the restaurant itself.The diner had kept in business thanks to a healthy amount of regulars. This man, he wasn’t a regular. He was dressed nicely in all black, that matched his dark hair, but contrasted against his pale skin.He looked as if he’d never known trans fat given his stature.But best of all, his wallet was sticking out of his jacket, hanging loosely at his side as he dazed exhaustedly into his food. 

She hyper-focused on the wallet.Certainly, a man who looked like him carried some cash with him.It wouldn’t ruin his life if a couple bucks went missing. 

The diner had been slow that night, it was a Wednesday and things didn’t pick up until usually Thursday.The diner owner, Maz, was in the back, prepping something for the two other Patrons in the restaurant, but other than that, they were alone.No witnesses.An easy job.Take the wallet, grab the cash, set the wallet back on the floor near his feet and he’d think the wallet had just fallen to the floor on his own.Easy. 

She zipped up her hoodie, leaving just her face exposed in shadow, and approached the diner bar.The man, thankfully, seemed so lost in his own problems that he didn’t notice her.He was sort of handsome, she thought as she slithered closer.He had a long young face and old eyes that reminded her of marble statues she’d seen on field trips in her youth.She wasn’t too proud to admit that she had looked for a ring, which he didn’t have, after observing the back of his jacket covered the base of his neck. 

Not that she truly thought the man she was about to rob could be the one she was looking for, but it became a habit to do with new people. 

She crouched down, looking around one last time to make sure she wasn’t in the other patrons line of view, and carefully, with one fluid movement knocked the wallet from his pocket, catching it softly in her palms then making a confident stride straight out the door, where she could examine the contents more thoroughly. 

She ducked down the alley near the back of the diner, where the dumpsters for the local businesses were kept.With wishful thoughts, she opened the leather wallet to review what it held.

_‘Kylo Ren’_ she thought, examining his ID after opening the wallet once she had turned into the alley next to the diner. _‘Weird name.’_

She opened the wallet flap to find a healthy amount of cash and slid it into her own pocket without bothering to count. It didn’t matter. She needed it, even if it was just a single dollar. 

“Hey!” a voice shouted, deep and furious from the street.Startled, she lifted her head to look at a dark silhouetted figure, backlit by streetlights, but she knew she had been caught.Instinctually, she took off running.The alley let out the other side to another street and she could escape him there.She should have dropped the wallet first, she’d gotten what she had wanted from it.Any of his credit cards would be deactivated as soon as he realized he’d been robbed, but yet she didn’t drop it.She just ran.She was lithe and fast, she could easily outrun this man. 

Except she couldn’t.In a matter of moments, he had managed to grab the back of her hoodie and pull her back.The fabric pulled tightly around her neck and she screamed as she slipped back towards the concrete.She slammed her eyes shut, bracing for the impact that never came.Instead, she was caught.She was hovering just above the ground, her toes barely upon the surface.

He had caught her.There was a stillness that overcame them both and the silence had never seemed more daunting.She was paralyzed with fear, unwilling to open her eyes, but something about the warmth of his body was soothing.With her pulse blaring loudly in her ears, she looked up at the man she’d intended to rob.

He was looking down at her, knelt at her side, and their eyes locked.He didn’t look angry, but rather confused.He was clearly expecting a male delinquent, not a young woman. 

“I wouldn’t have pulled so hard if I knew,” he said, still holding her just above the ground.Her heart pounded as she frowned.He didn’t need her to coddle her just because she was a girl, she was trying to steal from him.She was wrong regardless of her gender and she knew that. 

“It’s… fine,” she started, still not making any effort to raise herself.“I _did_ take your wallet.”

A flash of realization crossed the young man's face, almost as if he’d forgotten why he had chased the hooded figure into the alley in the first place.His face went from shocked to annoyed as he reassessed his thief, but he still held her carefully.As if she weighed nothing at all, her feet still barely on the ground. 

“Right,” he coughed.He held out his hand expectantly and she gently placed the wallet back in them, and he slipped it back into his coat pocket. Her heart continued to race as if she'd just ran a marathon. This sort of proximity, combined with the confrontation, was a new sensation to her. It was then she realized he had yet to break eye contact with her, and she with him. They both observed each other with bizarre curiosity. He almost felt familiar. Though she knew they hadn’t prior, she could tell he felt the same thing. 

“What’s your name?” his voice was soft again.For a moment, she wasn’t sure if he was asking because he was about to report her to the police, or if he was asking for _that_ reason.She strangely hoped it was the former because she already knew his name.She’d hate for someone, even for a minute, to think of her as a potential match when she knew he wasn’t even close. 

“…Rey.” She surprised herself when she told the truth. His breath hitched at the answer and he stood, lifting her with him, back to full height. 

“Rey what?” he asked with a new sense of urgency.He chewed his lip and placed both of his hands on her shoulders, she could feel them quiver through her layers. 

“Johnson.”

He deflated. That same way every man would when they heard her name.He dropped his hands and sighed, letting out a soft chuckle.

“You are looking for an ‘R’?” Rey asked.The cash in her jean pocket burning a hole through to her skin.

“Yes. Then a K.”He turned his head and lifted the back of his hair to display the mark. That mark they were all born with. 'R.K.' “Sorry I just thought…” he trailed off, “Rey is a strange name.”  
  
“You are one to talk, _Kylo Ren_.”Kylo looked up at her in bemusement and Rey explained, “your ID was in your wallet.Which, as a reminder, I tried to steal.”

“Right.So you knew my name already.” 

Rey rocked back on her heels, trying not to look as uncomfortable as she felt. 

“Well, you have my name now, do what you have too, report me or whatever,” Rey muttered but Kylo was entirely somewhere else again. 

“I’ll just pretend I never heard it,” he said after a breath. 

They stood looking at each other for another minute, and Rey couldn’t help but feel a wave of sadness wash over her.A sadness for him.A man she didn’t know. 

“I should go,” he murmured, “I should probably pay for my meal.”

“Good on you,” Rey said with a nervous laugh, and he returned a melancholic smile.

“Goodbye, Rey Johnson.”

“Goodbye, Kylo Ren.”

He turned and headed back towards the street, Rey almost forgetting that she’d still managed to pocket his cash.She chose to think that she had forgotten entirely. 

_‘What a strange name, it doesn’t suit him.’_

Not that it mattered.It wasn’t _her_ name.He’d be someone else’s problem.Some poor R.K., looking for a K.R., fantasizing about a Keith Reynolds, Kaleb Romero, or a Kristine Roberts, would be stuck with a Kylo Ren.

Not that she fantasized much about names anymore herself.She’d find them eventually.Until then, those initials on the nape of her neck would just be what they were. _Bullshit_. 


	2. Prologue Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for the amazing response to the first chapter! I've officially decided to continue and finish up this story as planned! I had a username change to better match my Tumblr handle (even though it's not the same) but just bit of an easier transition!

_Of course_ , she robbed him.

Kylo opened his wallet to hand the diner woman her pay and, of course, his cash was gone. She was smart enough not to bother with his credit cards, he would give her praise for that, but of course, she had taken his money. 

He handed the woman a card and she left to the cashier. 

“That girl in the sweatshirt, who was in here earlier, do you know her?” Kylo asked once the woman returned, handing him back his receipt. 

“Rey?” The woman said, gesturing over to the back table where Ben assumed the girl had been sitting earlier.He honestly hadn’t noticed anyone until he saw the hooded figure dash from the restaurant.He’d been too busy wallowing in self pity. 

“Yeah.”

“She helps me out sometimes in the diner, she's a sweet girl,” she said with a nod. Her name tag read ‘Maz’.“Usually does her homework in the back corner even on days I don't need the extra hands.”

“Student?” he queried. 

“She’s an engineering major over at HPU, poor thing, she’s doing everything she can to stay enrolled but life hasn’t been kind to her. Brilliant too. Too bad the damn program doesn’t see that and won’t offer her any money. They only offer scholarships to the legacy kids these days.”

Kylo chewed his lip as he listened, but said nothing of the events prior. There was no need. 

“I wish I could offer her more, without a student visa she’ll have to go back to London,” Maz sighed again, but then her brow became quizzical, “why do you ask?”

Truth be told, he didn’t know.There was no reason to stay interested aside from the fact that she now had a pocket full of his cash.“She just seemed familiar, but I don’t know anyone that fits the description.” 

Maz shook her head, something short of knowing in her eyes, and Kylo took his leave, shoving his hands in his pockets to assure his wallet was still there as he entered the brisk night air. _At least the grits had been halfway decent on an otherwise horrid evening._

 

—

 

‘ _Okay, the grits weren’t that good,_ ’ he thought as he found himself taking the same barstool he had the previous night at _Maz’s Place._ Of all the places in this city he could venture, of all the places that could have allowed him not to make contact with anyone, he willingly chose to come back here. 

“Look who’s back!” Maz wobbled over, her head just coming over the counter. “Looks like we’ve got ourselves another regular.”

Kylo looked around the room.It was more lively tonight than it had been the night before but he couldn’t say this was a place he particularly wanted to say he was a regular at.“Well, if the burger is as good as the grits, maybe,” he said with very little enthusiasm, but the old woman gave a short belly laugh and headed back to the kitchen. 

_Why the hell was he here?_

He supposed it must have been to confront the girl who ran off with his cash from the night before. That sounded reasonable. To want something back that belongs to him.Somewhere inside of him, that must have been the reason why when he left his office he didn't just go home and get something delivered like most nights.That must have been the reason why this run down shanty diner sounded like a pleasing place to go after nine hours of work-related hell. _She_ worked here, certainly, she would show up at some point, and he could get his money back.

Maz came out of the kitchen, giving Kylo a polite acknowledgment, and went to converse with some other customers in one of the booths. They all greeted her with enthusiasm and hollers, and Kylo turned back to stare intently at the counter. 

“Hey Maz, your oven timer is going off!”The kitchen door swung open again, and there she was. The little chocolate haired hazel eyed thief.Her eyes drifted over the restaurant to find the woman she was calling for and they landed straight on him.

“ _EEEEEP_ ,” she screeched and without any hesitation, she turned around and went straight back into the kitchen. 

Not quite the reaction he was expecting. 

Then he felt a sharp slap to the back of his head. 

Also not what he was expecting. 

“What did you do to her!?” Maz was standing beside him now, using all her moxie to gain inches.Her once friendly demeanor replaced with a vengeance he only saw in his line of work. 

“God, nothing!” Kylo spluttered, rubbing his hand on the back of his head.

“You come in here, asking all sorts of questions last night, and expect me to believe that?” She snarled and the table of men behind her shifted in their seats to get ready to defend her.“You have three seconds to get out of my diner before I send every one of my men at you.Trust me.They owe me favors.”

Kylo usually wasn’t one to turn down a fight, at least not when he was in his school years, but this was not one worth fighting.He raised his hands in surrender before getting up off of the stool, Maz now pointing a fork to his face.

“ _Wait,_ ” a small voice, Rey's voice, said through a crack in the kitchen door. 

Maz turned towards the sound and with an ‘I’m watching you’ gesture, she walked towards the girl, following her into the other room.The diner, which had become incredibly silent started to hum with chatter again and Ben stood awkwardly leaning against the bar.Unsure if he should just leave before he physically or mentally scarred himself any further. 

A moment later, the kitchen door swung open yet again and Maz, with tight lips and dignified stance walked back over to Kylo.The counter separating them as if they were to sign a treaty of sorts. 

“I believe I owe you an apology,” she grumbled, clearly not used to doing such a thing, or being wrong.“I misinterpreted.”  
  
Kylo found himself surprisingly unbothered as he buttoned up his jacket, still preparing to leave.“I appreciate it, but I do feel I’ve overstayed my welcome.” 

“Please do stay, the meal is on the house,” the woman said apologetically.“I’ve never known Rey to behave in such a way, especially to customers.”

He looked back to the kitchen door once more.Pleading with it to open. 

“It’s fine.” 

The bell on the door rang as he left.His pace so quick it almost could be considered a jog as he trekked back to his car. 

_Why the hell did he go there?_

_He didn’t god damn care about the money. He knew he didn’t.Why in all of heaven and hell did he go there?_

“Hey, hold on!!” 

Kylo turned to face _her_. Rey, hugging a backpack to her chest jogging after him, hood pulled up around her face once more. 

“I have your cash, well, most of it,” she said, unzipping the bag and reaching into it, unable to meet his gaze.“I’ll make the rest up to you I-“

“You don’t have too-“ he said with haste, leaning down slightly in an attempt to see her eyes again. 

“I should have said something last night, I just…” she pulled up a crumpled wad of cash from the bottom of her bag and held it out in an open palm, “I don’t know I don’t have a good reason.”

Ben reached forward to her fingertips and closed them around the money again.He tried not to think about the warmth of her skin as they touched.“You can tell your boss you gave it back, keep it, I don’t really need it.” 

“She’ll probably fire me and I don’t even formally work there…”

“That woman’s got a soft spot for you, I think she’ll give you a second chance.”

Rey nodded, looking up at him in the silence that passed.There was something truly palpable between them that Kylo would have given all of his money to find a name for.  It felt like tragedy, nothing good could come out of this, their destinies were not tied, but tragedy would be worth it just to have a few more seconds of _this_. 

_He was pathetic._  
  
“Let me make it up to you,” she pleaded, slowly putting the wadded up cash back in her bag, those sharp young eyes filled with something so recognizable that he was almost whisked away. 

He smirked. 

“Buy me dinner sometime.” 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to try for a Weekly Thursday Upload! Thank you guys so much for the support on the first chapter (and I'm so glad that the punchline of the chapter didn't go missed!) I mean, we all know this will end well, but that doesn't mean there isn't going to be some angst around the way. 
> 
> Also: Rating to likely change.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3

“…and you said ‘ _YES’!_?”The words nearly shook the room as Rey’s best friend (and one of several housemates) yelped after she had shared with him the events of the prior evening. 

“Yes, _Finn_ ” she growled in return, not expecting as much judgment as she received.She had almost thought he'd be impressed with her spontaneity, saying it was a quality he always strived for in his self titled ‘journey’s to self-improvement’. 

“Let me get this straight. You rob a guy at Maz’s and he swoons and _asks you out_.” His stare became deadpanned as he settled into their couch.Finn had known and shared Rey’s financial struggle in the past years, and they lived with two other people just to be able to afford a run down shack outside of the city.  Even at times, his moral compass was also not always pointing in the right direction, but he seemed more shocked by the fact Rey had agreed to go out to dinner with someone than by the fact that she had pick-pocketed someone in a moment of desperation. 

“He didn’t ask me out… he was just…”  
  
“Asking you out.” Finn completed.  
  
“Well, he knows nothing will come of it, he knows we’re not a match or anything. So he must know it’s not _really_ a date.” Rey mused, bringing her fingers up underneath her hair to graze the back of her neck. 

“Just because you two aren’t _soulmates_ doesn’t mean his intentions are innocent. Most people date before meeting their match. You are just old fashioned.”

“Am not,” she said, on the defensive. 

Finn groaned, pinching his brow at Rey’s conjectured naivety. “Is he cute at least?”

“I haven’t really thought about it,” she lied, “he just didn’t turn me into the police when he probably should have.”

“Your dating standards are _really_ low.”

“I told you, it’s not a date! There isn’t a point. Certainly, he’s smart enough to know that. This is just so I don’t feel guilty about… taking his money.”

“Are you sure he’s not taking advantage of you? Guilting you into something more in exchange for not turning you in?” Finn’s look became more concerned, and while he had a point, Rey had tired of him approaching her like she wasn’t a woman who could make her own decisions and take care of herself. 

“He didn't give me an ultimatum between dinner or turning me into the police if that’s what you are asking.”

“and it was his idea?” Finn leaned forward.

“Yes.”

“it’s a date, Rey.”He took her hands in his own and gave Rey a pleading look, “he 100% asked you with the intention of it being a date. I think he’s sweet on you.” 

The doorbell rang and Rey released her hands from Finn’s hold then lightly punched him in the arm.With one last sharp declare that “it’s not a date!” she stood from the couch and darted towards the front door. 

“He came to the door, how old is this guy anyway?” Finn said with a laugh.

“He’s younger than Poe, so shut up!” she shouted as she stopped in front of the entryway.She took a breath. It _wasn’t_ a date. Finn was just teasing her. No man would think it was worth his time courting someone who wasn’t meant for him. 

Except when she opened the door he was dressed in a suit and tie.He’d been wearing a similar getup the previous nights she had seen him, but something about the way he stood in front of her now made her throat dry.He opened his mouth as to speak, but as if his mouth had also become dry they both waited in an unbearable silence.

“I feel underdressed,” Rey choked out, gesturing wildly to her large sweater and leggings.She could hear Finn snickering around the corner and she darted back a look. 

“I just came from work, I had to stay a bit late and didn’t have time to change,” he replied, looking oddly embarrassed, the tips of his ears turning pink, “I am the one who should feel overdressed.”

A much-needed wave of relief rushed over Rey. _He didn’t think about his outfit or how he looked in said outfit.He just came from work.It was not a date._

“So, where do you want to go?” Rey asked, hoping he had a place in mind. After all, this was her opportunity to ‘pay’ him back. 

“I saw a Dex Burger down the street. That sounded pretty good. I can drive if you want,” he shrugged, looking over his shoulder, signaling to his parked car. 

“Good, because I can't drive,” Rey laughed a bit anxiously, “And no, pick somewhere else, Dex Burger is a ten dollar meal for the both of us, it’s not fair.”

“I’m being honest, that’s what sounded good.And let’s not talk about the money.We’re starting over.Fresh slate for the both of us.”

Rey hesitated as she looked out at his car on the street. A black sports car that reeked of overcompensation, but Rey, being a mechanics enthusiast at heart, had found herself not completely immune to its charms.  The words 'fresh slate' echoing in her mind. 

“Well, if you are sure,” Rey said guiltily, slipping on her shoes before walking out the door.“In that case, I’m Rey.”

She held out her palm for a handshake and he considered her with an apprehensive look. Then, when he understood, he met her grasp and shook it once. 

“I’m Kylo.”

 

—

 

“So… what brought you into Maz’s the other night anyway?” Rey said, shifting awkwardly into a booth, unwrapping her burger the moment she dropped the tray on their table.

“The food,” he replied, monotonously, as if he was annoyed by the question, but after a second he smirked and Rey rolled her eyes.

“No, really.” 

“It was across the street from a place I was supposed to be meeting someone at, ending up not happening.” He opened up his carton of chicken strips and shoved one whole in his mouth like that would stop this conversation from going any further. 

“A date?”

“I didn't say that,” he muttered, mouth still full. It was the first time he had seemed anything less than put together and something about that endeared her in a way that made her physically react with a shiver.

“You were wallowing an awful lot for someone who didn’t just get stood up on a date,” she said, shaking her head. 

“Not enough to not notice a local scavenger taking my wallet.”

“Hey there!” Rey exclaimed, chucking a fry at his face. Kylo, perfectly unmoved by the assault, let the fry bounce off his forehead. “I thought you said we were starting over.”

“Exactly, so we don’t need to talk about how much I wallow when I get stood up.”

“So you _did_ get stood up.”

“…Yes,” he admitted with a grunt, hunching forward.

“Uh,” Rey stumbled, cursing herself for getting far too personal far too quickly, but her lips ran regardless, “… was this person that stood you up… a match?”

“…Yes, again. But I’ve gone out with other ‘matches’ before, just never _the_ match. Too many people on the damn planet make this whole soulmate thing difficult.These marks are supposed to make it easy, instead, it just makes you delusional. You make excuses for every damn match until you’ve realized you should have just trusted your instincts.”

“Had you met this person before?”

“We’d texted a bit, she seemed decent enough, but I don’t know, that morning when I woke up I really felt like she was the one. I just felt like I was going to meet _her_ that day.It hit harder than usual, knowing that she didn’t even believe it enough to show up.I just got a text that said ‘sorry’ and that’s it.”He paused and popped a single fry into his mouth. “What about you?”

“What about _me_?”  
  
“Have you met matches?”

“Oh. One. In high school. I knew right away he wasn’t the one though.”

“What are you looking for anyway?” he said, lightly motioning to her neck.

“Excuse me?” Rey frowned a little at the question. 

“Your mark, what is it?” 

“I…” she brought her fingers back to the tip of her spine and made sure her hair covered it fully,“I’d prefer to keep that to myself. It’s a personal thing.”  
  
“I told you mine,” he pouted then released a short huff in amusement, “you are an old fashioned romantic, I see.”

“I’ve been called that twice today. Old fashioned.” 

“It’s refreshing. Someone who is still looking forward to meeting _the one_.”He finger quoted ‘the one’ as if the concept was alien to him. _Asshole._

“You _aren’t_?”

He didn’t respond right away. He chewed his lip giving himself a short lull to think before speaking again.  
  
“It’s really lonely after a while, every connection you make feels half baked. It’s always in the back of your mind, the whole soulmate thing, it really prevents you from opening up to anyone. It makes you cynical after away.”For a moment it looked like he was about to reach across the table and Rey quietly leaned back into her seat and slipped her hands into her lap as the lump in her throat grew twice its size.

“Is this a date?”She said, perhaps too quickly to sound natural.Not that it was a natural addition to the conversation anyway. 

“What?”  
  
“My roommate seemed to think this was a date, but if you think every connection you make is half baked, you don’t think this is a date right?”  
  
“Want to go see a movie?” he asked, completely ignoring the last five seconds of conversation. 

“A _movie_?” she said impassively. 

“Yeah, it’s early and it’s Friday night, I hear that new Kiadi Mundi movie is good, and it’s playing at the theater down the street from here. Not sure if you like foreign films.”

“I do…” Rey answered, unsure if she should have been insulted by the way he posed the question, “I speak French, actually, so I quite enjoy Mundi’s work.”

“Really? I thought you were going to think I sounded like a pretentious ass by suggesting it.”  
  
“I did.But that doesn’t mean I don’t speak 5 languages fluently…2 others I have a grasp on.”

“That’s… impressive.”

“Not really, came with the territory when I was growing up. When you are young and traveling you kinda just have a knack for them.”An ache filled her heart as she curtly decided to change the subject. “Sure, a movie sounds fun.”

 

—

 

He bought both of their tickets. _Of course, he had._ He had insisted because, after all, their deal had only been for dinner. Which she had only paid the whopping $9.75 for with his technical money.She insisted paying for her own entry, but he didn’t give her the chance, asking for two tickets from the booth before she could even step up.

“I don’t want to be your charity project,” she grumbled, snatching the ticket from his hand then giving it to the usher who ripped it in half as they walked by.“I know Maz told you about my… financial woes, but I don't want you to think of me as a charity case.”

Kylo didn’t say anything as he surveyed the theater for the best seats, given they had essentially the entire theater to themselves save for a handful of duos scattered about.“Mind if we sit in the back?”

“Stop doing that.”

“Doing what?”

“Changing the subject when you don’t want to address what I’m actually saying.”

“Fine. I don’t think you are a charity project. You did need the money more than I did so I’m sorry if you thought that was some sort of manipulation into getting you to go out with me, but may I remind you we are only in this mess because you robbed me, and it’s only a date if you want it to be. I’m fine either way. That cover everything?”

“You are kinda an asshole you know that?” Rey said, following him up the stairs.He turned back towards, surprised she was still following him giving a satisfied smirk. 

“I know,” he responded, turning into the top aisle, “and you could’ve gone home.”

“…I know.” Rey cursed herself.She could have said no to the movie.She could have just asked him to take her home or call someone to pick her up.She couldn’t describe what force of nature made her say yes, but it was almost like she was enjoying herself. 

He settled in the middle of the row, looking over at her like he was partly expecting her to turn around and leave. Rey squinted, cocking her head to the side in an attempt to read him. This was by far one of the strangest evenings of her life and nothing that strange had even occurred.The only thing out of the ordinary was that she couldn’t describe was what was happening in her damn head. 

So she sat, bringing her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them to ready herself for the film.Kylo didn’t say a thing. He just leaned back and slung his arms over the back of the surrounding seats. 

The lights dimmed.The other couples in the theater leaned into one another. Rey curled up further into herself.She wanted to look back at him.As the movie began and the story played out, all she could focus on was how badly she wanted to look at him, because she had a feeling, due to the burning down her back, he was looking at her. 

“The subtitle translations are really awful,” she whispered at some point during the film, when the burning became too painful to ignore.

“Really?” The sound of his response finally gave her the courage to turn and face him.

“They are so cheesy, the French is much more romantic.English just doesn’t have the proper words for it I guess.”

“I believe it.” 

And then their eyes connected for just a moment too long.Rey felt her a sudden heat in her cheeks and she brought her hands to face to shield them from view in case they were becoming tinted.  Because, even in the dark, the last thing she wanted was for him to know that something within her was flustered.That something about him made her this way. 

She spent the rest of the film like that. Hands up and curled away.

“I don’t suppose you would like to do something like this again sometime by the way you were contorted the last two hours?” he said as they left the theater, almost teasing her. 

“…I don’t know,” Rey said honestly, trudging alongside him, once again unable to bring herself to look at his reaction, “I just don’t see the point. You said it yourself, any connection you make feels half baked when you know you have someone waiting for you.”

“What the hell do I know.” He tossed a hand flippantly. “Maybe I can’t make connections just because I’m an asshole.”

“You _are_ an asshole,” Rey said, halfway under her breath but he seemed amused by the comment. 

“Perhaps a little bit,” he shrugged. “So, are you saying no because I’m an asshole, or because the whole ‘not a match’ thing.”

Rey knew it would have been a lot easier to just tell him it was because he was an asshole.It was because their personalities didn’t mix. But she actually did like the banter on some level.She actually wanted to keep talking to him despite nearly falling asleep by the end of the film. “It would be a waste of time.”

They walked in silence into the night. 

“I starting to think that isn’t true.” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine's day today! A bit of a longer chapter as I try to readjust the story pacing now that this is no longer a one-shot! Your comments have meant the world to me, and thank you for the support! I hope you guys enjoy this little Valentines Day treat!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I changed the rating because I do have the intention of having the fic rating go up, so I don't want readers to be surprised by it, we have a bit of a burn before that, but a bit of a warning!

_It would have been a waste of time._

Rey repeated those words to herself an in attempt to lull herself to sleep when she’d gotten home that Friday night. Her roommates had already been asleep in their rooms, save for Rose whom she shared a room with. But when asked about the evening, Rey only repeated her mantra:

“ _it would have been a waste of time._ ”

Rose had opened her mouth to argue, Rey knew this by the way she shook her head and her brow lowered, but Rey claimed fatigue and collapsed onto her bed instead of discussing it any further. Rose had left for work by the time Rey had waken the next morning. 

She didn’t want to talk about it, she decided. She was right in her decision to not see him again. They were ‘even’ in his book, she had ‘paid’ him back.Seeing each other again… _it would have been a waste of time._ She knew it. He knew it. It was better to just let it go before actual emotions set in. It would be much easier to let this strange intrigue fade away rather than let it fester into something with actual weight. 

That didn’t stop Finn from asking the same questions when morning came through. Him, at the kitchen counter, coffee mug in hand, looking at the flannel pajama’d, unrested Rey with a suspicious stare.

“So, was it a date?” he said immediately, not even giving her a proper morning greeting. 

“He said ‘it was if I wanted it to be’,” Rey replied, dragging herself over to the coffee pot.If she was going to play 20 questions, she would need some caffeine in her system first. “So, no.”

“You actually asked him?” Finn said with a laugh.

“You got in my head!” Rey bit back, relaxing the tiniest bit when the warm liquid from her mug touched her lips.“I told him we shouldn’t see each other again, so even if it was a date, it doesn’t matter.”

“It went that badly, huh?”  
  
She didn’t know how to respond right away. The truth was it had actually been quite an amusing evening. He wasn’t particularly sweet or anything of the sort, but she did genuinely like something about him. So in that regards, it had gone bad. It had gone badly from the moment she had gone flush when he looked at her. It had gone badly when her body had decided to be attracted to him.

“No,” she sighed, leaning over the counter, unsure if she wanted to continue to analyze it.“He was kind of interesting, I guess.”

“What does he do?”

“…I don’t know.”

“Where is he from?”  
  
“…I don’t know.”  
  
“Any siblings?”  
  
“… I don’t know.”  
  
“Did you learn anything about this guy that you found so interesting?” Finn leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest, looking like a police officer in an interrogation that was going nowhere.

“We didn’t talk about that stuff, we just kind of… talked.”Rey stewed. “That stuff didn’t really come up.”

“Basic human information didn’t come up on a first date?”Finn lost all inflection as he said those words, making sure Rey was really hearing what she was saying for herself. 

“It wasn’t a date.”

“Fine, it wasn’t a date.” Finn dismissed it with a wave of his hand.“Do you _want_ to see him again?”

“I don’t know,” she said, and the answer surprised her.She had made up her mind about the whole scenario and she knew the best option was to make a clean break.“I mean, no, it would be a waste of his time.”

“Rey…” Finn’s voice became soft, his forehead softened, and his demeanor completely and suddenly changed.“I’m sorry.” 

“Sorry for what?” Rey tilted her head and took another sip from her cup.

“You liked him,” Finn concluded and Rey felt her knees begin to buckle as if she was being confronted for murder. 

Finn left pause for Rey to refute the subject. He slouched forward waiting for the debate but actually knowing it wouldn’t come.A twisting sensation filled Rey’s chest, and she placed her mug down without any respectable ending to their conversation and left the room to go back into her own. 

Before shutting the door she could hear a faint “Rey, I’m sorry, come back!” from the kitchen but she was done talking. She flung herself onto her bed and began to bury herself in the covers.She had nowhere to be today.She could go into Maz’s later, but she was honestly still afraid to face Maz again.Maz had been forgiving and understanding about the whole pick-pocketing scenario, after all, her patrons weren’t known to be the most moral of folks, so that meant she was used to a certain level of unruliness in her establishment, but Rey wasn’t supposed to be like that.At least, in Rey’s mind, she wasn’t supposed to be like that.

She hadn’t realized how many hours had passed curled away until she heard a murmur from outside her door.

“Wait, don’t go in there!” a muffled Finn said. 

“Why not? It’s my room.” 

_‘Rose was already home?’_ Rey thought to herself upon hearing her voice, rolling over to check her clock.‘ _That’s impossible.’._

“Rey’s sulking,” Finn responded. “She’s been in there all day.”  
  
And sure enough, as Rey examined her alarm, the day had mostly passed. In what seemed like an instant, hours were gone.

“Sulking about what?” Rose’s voice lowered, but not enough as Rey was still able to hear them. She growled under her breath as she crawled closer to the door as quietly as she could to listen more clearly. 

“She’s got a crush,” Finn said.  Rey's felt her cheeks go hot. 

“No way, she said the date was a waste of time.”

“She told me it was a waste of _his_ time then spent the rest of the day sulking.Meaning: She has a crush.”

“I’ve never seen Rey with a crush before, I almost didn’t think it was possible.”

“That’s how I know, I’ve never seen her like this.”  
  
“I need to go into my room eventually.”

“I know, just give her a little bit longer. She’ll come out for dinner. I’m cooking! Potatoes, chicken, and veggies.”

“But maybe she needs some girl talk?”

“She’s lonely Rose.”

“She knows she has us!”  
  
“But it’s not the same. You know that.”

There was a pause that filled Rey with dread. A pause filled with pity. 

“I know. 

“I’m so glad I have you, Ro,” Finn's voice was delicate, “but we may have to let Rey figure this one out on her own, I don’t think she’s ever been through something like this. It may be good for her in the long run, for her to realize that she may want to be with someone sometimes.  Not on a 'friend' level.”

Rey didn’t think it would be possible, but her heart sank even further.She shuffled away from the door and jumped back into her bed trying to calm her breath.She had seen Finn and Rose become closer over the last few months but she had never thought they could have been trying to begin something more than that.They weren’t soulmates, she knew that.Their letters didn’t match no matter how anyone looked at it. Was she just so wrapped up in her own business that she didn’t notice? Did they not trust her enough to let her know? Or worst of all, did they not think she was mature enough to handle it?

Maybe she had just misinterpreted. Maybe hunger had made her delusional.Certainly, her friends wouldn’t lie to her about starting a romantic partnership?

But maybe waiting for the _right_ one was lonely. Maybe lonely took different forms, and there wasn’t only one kind of it. Maybe Rey didn't understand it like she thought she did. 

She didn’t come out of her room that night, even if the smell of grilled chicken made her stomach rumble.Even if Finn did lightly tap on the door to try to let her know he’d made dinner.She didn’t respond. 

Somewhere during the night, Rey had managed to drift off, despite spending most of the day disassociated.No dreams soothed or plagued her. But when she had awakened at 4 AM the next morning Rose had yet to return to their room, and her belly churned making a familiar whine. With a dazed mind, she rolled out of bed to head towards the kitchen in hopes something was leftover. 

Tiptoeing out the door, opening it as softly as possible, she made it to the kitchen where a plastic wrapped plate had been left out with the post-it that read “Rey” on it.A light smile spread across her face. She looked around the room for any signs of life to where she spotted Rose tucked in and fast asleep on the couch.Instantly, guilt overwhelmed her and wiped the grin from her cheeks. Then, after a second, she spotted Finn.Also asleep, sitting, leaning back against the couch cushions. 

She let herself smile again at the sight. 

She accepted this as a moment of joy, whatever this was, this is what they, Finn and Rose, needed.  

After a thought, she grabbed the plate from the counter, slipped on her shoes and, still in her pajamas from the night prior, slipped on her tennis shoes and jacket and went out the door. 

 

—

 

The HPU library was always open, thankfully, as Rey trotted up the front steps of the historic building, eating small handfuls of vegetables from her plate along the way.With a flash of her Student ID to the very exhausted overnight librarian, who luckily didn’t seem bothered by Rey’s lack of daytime attire, she headed towards the computer lab for a hopeful distraction.That’s what her head told her, but her heart clearly had something else in mind.

While mashed potatoes and grilled veggies weren’t the most appetizing thing at the crack of dawn, it certainly made for a good entertainment snack when she logged onto her school's computer system, opened a browser, and did a web search for “Kylo Ren.”

And certainly, with a name like Kylo Ren, what showed up was positively him.  


**_Kylo Ren: Lead Financial Strategist, First Order Investments_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for reading! We're almost at 100 Kudos! If you enjoy the story so far, I'd appreciate the help getting there! 
> 
> Hope you are all doing well! Any episode IX title predictions? I have so many and I can't wait for all of them to be wrong! haha!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey Guys! Sorry for the little later than usual update. But it's a little bit of a longer chapter so I hope you enjoy! I'll do another editing pass in the morning, so I apologize for the rush, I just wanted to make sure I posted on schedule!

 

Kylo prayed someone would just come and put him out of his misery as he listened to Armitage Hux, First Order Investments CFO, ramble on and on about how this quarters financial reports were not proving to be a successful as the last and they were in decline. The decline in which Kylo predicted and warned Hux about months prior. Hux acted like he was shocked that his investment in Dedlanite mining had failed when Kylo has warned him against it from its inception. It was his job after all.A job he was very good at when people actually bothered to listen to him.

Kylo dropped his head back and tried his best to drown out Hux’s words with his own inner dialog. It was too early to have to deal with this shit. If it weren’t for the fact that Kylo was sure he would go clinically sane if he stewed in his own misery for one more hour inside his condominium he would have called out, but now he was not so sure he made the right choice. Perhaps insanity was the better option.

There was not much that was more exhausting than feeling sorry for yourself, the circles under Kylo’s eyes had that to thank, and if he heard Hux say one more thing about the ‘future of dedlanite trade’ Kylo was positive he’d collapse onto the floor. Even though Kylo considered himself to be the main reason this investment firm had any sort of success, he was still essentially powerless in the chain of command. It was infuriating, but the salary at least softened some of the blow. Most of the time _._ Today just reminded him of how unequivocally alone and powerless he was. _Mondays_. 

Hux released the meeting and Kylo skulked back to his office where he’d spend the rest of the morning and probably most of the afternoon looking at growth charts.Growth charts he’d present to Snoke with Hux that would inevitably be ignored if today was any indicator. Everyone would seemingly ‘forget’ all the warnings he’d give about certain investments when they floundered. Thankfully Snoke had recognized Hux’s failure with the Starkiller investment because Kylo likely would have been dead if Snoke thought he was to blame for it. 

At least he had his own private office where he could think. He shut the door behind him, turning the lock to avoid further contact for as long as humanly possible and collapsed onto his chair, letting it swivel underneath him as the briefest sort of thrill. He’d take anything to liven up his otherwise stagnant life. 

He mindlessly spun his chair once more in a full circle and knocked his desk with a hard _klunk_ , sending items rolling off the edge. 

“Fuck,” he muttered as he scrambled to pick the mess up.A couple of pens, keys, and wallet.He set the first items back on his desk but held his wallet for another moment.He opened the leather and shuffled through the pockets until he pulled out his ticket stub from the Friday before. 

He didn’t know why he did this to himself.He didn’t know why he continued to torture himself over the concept of companionship when he didn’t know if it would truly bring him any peace.It certainly seemed to cause his parents more distress than joy in his youth, even if they were soulmates.

‘Being someone's soulmate doesn’t mean everything is always perfect’ his mother would always say when his father would storm out, ‘it means that you found the person that’s worth fighting for.’ 

His father would always come back, eventually. 

That didn’t make Kylo dislike him any less. 

Maybe Rey was right. Maybe Friday had been a waste of time.There was no use pursuing something that wasn’t right, it would only be a temporary fix to a much larger task. 

_Then why could he stop thinking about her? Her, specifically.  
_  
He couldn’t care less about the woman who stood him up Wednesday. The potential match that he’d been so nearly sure of waking up that morning.But the engineering student who spoke five languages and robbed him at a diner, she wouldn’t leave his mind. The way she ate handfuls of fries at a time, the way she curled up at the movie theater as if she were in the privacy of her home, even the way she seemed 100% wholly bitter with him the entire evening, yet didn’t leave. 

_But in a way, she still hadn’t left._

He put the stub back into his wallet, knowing that it would have been smarter to just throw it away. He didn’t need to hold onto her. She was just a fleeting memory now. An entirely lovely freckled memory.But the ticket went back into his wallet regardless. 

A knock at the door took him out of his daze. He set his wallet back onto his desk before calling out a monotonous “come in.” 

The door swung open and Hux’s assistant stood in the doorway.She was an amazon of a woman, taller than he was (even without the three-inch heels she wore daily), and was the one person who genuinely scared him at First Order other than Snoke. “Someone is here to kill you,” she grunted. 

“Let them in, Phas,” Kylo scoffed, opening his arms wide to welcome it.“I’ve been waiting.” 

“Security won’t let them in,” she replied, unamused by his comment, “and as much as Hux would love it for them to let this one slide, I thought I’d give you the heads up.”

“Who is it?” Kylo leaned forward, thinking Phasma might not have been kidding about someone being there to kill him after all. 

“I don’t know, some girl,” Phasma pulled out her phone and started scrolling, checking out of the conversation.“She asked a few people if you worked here when they were walking in apparently, and they reported it to security because it seemed odd.”

“No one recognized her?”

“Nope.” Phasma turned around, as her duty was done, as she walked away she added, “so if you were expecting someone, she’s downstairs, otherwise I might ask a security guard to walk you to your car later.You can never be too sure when it comes to losing people’s money.Which you’ve been doing a lot of lately.” 

He growled. She knew god damn well that wasn’t true. But it was probably part of her job description as Hux’s assistant to piss Kylo off as much as possible. 

So he went to welcome death and headed toward the elevator.

First Order Investments had an entire high-rise dedicated to their business dealings.Snoke having the entire top floor to himself so he could figuratively sit on the scrambling employees below him. This was not lost on Kylo, but the man was successful. He built an empire out of nothing. He could at least respect that. 

When the elevator doors opened up into the main lobby, he didn’t see anything of any importance.He went over to the security desk who immediately straightened as he approached. 

“I was told someone was looking for me?”

“Uh, yes sir,” the guard stammered, a young man who was about half of Kylo’s size, “we asked her to wait outside until we got ahold of you, are you expecting someone?”

He shrugged.As long as it wasn’t his mother, whom he was sure someone would have recognized, it would likely be a welcome distraction— even if it was someone to beat him for losing their money.He could use the stimulation. 

That’s when he turned to the door.The First Order offices had a glass entrance that let you see straight out into the street, and leaning on it was a familiar hoodie slouched up against the building. 

“Shit.” 

“Excuse me, sir?” the guard said, “Do you need me to call for backup?”  
  
“No.” he barked, “fuck.”

“…Are you sure?-“ the young man offered one more time, more apprehensive than ever but Kylo ignored him, storming out toward the front doors.His heart was pounding and his head swimming.He pressed out onto the sidewalk and turned to face the girl who didn’t even notice that he had come outside. He stared as if this was a mirage that was about to fade. He squinted to make sure he was actually seeing what was in front of him or if Hux’s bullshit had finally caused him to snap.He took another step forward. 

“Hey, scavenger,” Kylo said, taking a breath, now  looking down at the girl at his feet.She looked up with a sense of relief he was not expecting and she scrambled to her feet.Dusting herself off as she reached her full height.

“I’m sorry to come here like this, I didn’t know how else to get ahold of you and I just…” she paused, and a look of worry washed over her previously relieved demeanor, “shit, I look like a crazy person right now don’t I?”

“What?”

“God, what girl comes to a guys place of work after knowing him a handful of days.Oh god, what was I thinking?” She put her hands to her face, murmuring her final thought more to herself than him. 

“I don’t mind, I’m actually glad—“

“Is this what spiraling is? One thing happens and suddenly you lose all grasp of common sense?” Rey interrupted, rocking back on her feet, seeming to ignore him entirely.He held his tongue though, almost afraid if he spoke too much she would disappear.“I’m sorry you were saying something.”

“What happened?” 

“Huh?”  
  
“What happened to you that made you, in your words, ‘lose all grasp of common sense’.” He said this with a sudden feeling of protectiveness he wasn’t accustomed too, sudden guilt in his gut that was unfamiliar. “Was it something I did?”

“No,” Rey quickly clarified, waving her hands as if to brush the idea away, “I think my best friend and my roommate are dating and they didn’t tell me.”

“Okay?” he said, lifting a brow. 

“Here I was, spewing about how any sort of courtship that wasn’t with a soulmate was a waste of time to people who were doing that. My best friends. I was saying this to my _best friends_.”

“Courtship? I knew you were British, but not from the 1800s.”He chuckled, finding it more humorous than Rey did.He quickly pressed his lips together in a flat line as he listened. 

“I think you were right… about being lonely.I thought we’d only feel a true connection with one person in our lives.That’s not true.Maybe we are destined to have multiple people in our lives and these marks on our bodies are just means to an end.”

“I’m a little confused,” he said, not wanting to get his hopes up and assume what she was implying. 

“I know you felt something that night we met at the diner. I knew the way you asked me my name. I knew by your face when I told you. I didn’t think you could feel something like that with someone you weren’t ‘meant to be with’, but whatever strange oddity you felt in that moment, I felt it too.”

“Is this some sort of grand romantic gesture?” Kylo said, leaning down with a shit-eating grin he was unable to constrain. Rey’s face ignited into a fiery red. 

“ _NOT_ Romantic. But it’s a gesture. I think, maybe, we were meant to know each other. I’ve been pushing people away for as long as I can remember waiting on people that I have no control over when or if they will ever come into my life.My best friends didn’t even feel like they could tell me they were together. Something about me made them afraid to tell me.”

“What are you saying?” He was starting to understand, but waiting for the words made him impatient.

“I’m saying it was a mistake to say knowing you would be a waste of time.”Rey spat, sounding angrier than the words implied.It led to a quiet between them that was palpable.Cars passed on the street behind them, and strangers conversed lightly as they passed by. 

“You are really cute,”Kylo said, breaking the silence.

“What?”

“Probably the cutest thing I’ve ever looked at.”

“Stop.” She touched her cheeks as the blush ran down her neck, frowning intensely. 

“What?”

“I said this wasn’t a grand romantic gesture. It was just me asking if you’d like to see each other again. If you don’t think this would be a waste of time.”

“I never said that.”

“I know.” The look of remorse on her face had the ability to bring him anguish for years to come.As if it were a reflex, he took one more step closer, and wrapped his arms around hers, bringing her to him, tucking her neatly underneath his chin.She stilled at the gesture, and for a moment he worried he had gone too far, but she relaxed, melting into his embrace just slightly. 

“Let’s get out of here.”He murmured, lips pressed into the top of her hood. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you prefer shorter quicker chapters? Or longer chapters but more of a wait? Curious to know!  
> Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoy an ol' Soul Mater AU


	6. Chapter 6

Rey was many things. A student. A natural mechanic. A connoisseur of languages. But never did she consider herself pathetic until she sat at Dex Burger, yet again, with a Financial Strategist and overall seemingly put together person Kylo Ren after practically begging him to see her again outside his office like a stalker. 

“You really _do_ like Dex Burger.” Rey laughed, a bit nervously. She was more consciously aware of the situation now than she was the last time they were both here. This was a date. There was no hiding it this time. 

“I wasn’t lying. I genuinely enjoy fast food, you can get a lot for a little,” he said, taking a large bite that demolished nearly half his burger in one go. 

“You aren’t just saying that so I don’t feel bad that you paid, are you?”

“You paid last time, so it’s only fair.” He smirked, mouth still partway full. 

“Not _really,_ ” Rey groaned, but left the topic at that, “do you have to get back to work eventually?”

“Eventually.” Kylo shrugged. “Snoke’s an asshole but he’s still an asshole that allows lunch breaks.”

“Is that your boss?”

“Yes.” Something simmered beneath his exterior as he said that, but he continued eating. “That’s one way of putting it.”

“So what do you _do_ anyway?”

“I advise our company and our partners on different financial trends and wise investments,” he said in a rehearsed sort of way as if he’d been asked one hundred times. 

“Sounds important.” 

“It would be if anyone ever listened to me. Half the time my job is being berated for things I had advised against in the first place. Sometimes I’m just the company scapegoat.” His nose twitched as if he had feared he had said too much and he grabbed a handful of fries to fill his mouth. 

“If you hate how they treat you so much why don’t you just leave? I’m sure there are other investment firms in the area.”

“ _So, engineering?_ That’s what Maz said your major was at the diner.” Kylo said, quickly and without a transition.

“Oh, uh, yeah.” Rey stammered, a bit thrown off by the sudden change of subject. “I have class later actually, but it’s a night class so I’m not in any rush.”

“What made you go into engineering?”  
  
“I’m good at it,” she said, lifting her shoulders then dropping them matter-of-factly. “I’ve always been good which machines and figuring out how they work.It just kinda seemed like the path that was set out in front of me.”

“But do you _like_ it?”

“I…” Rey was surprised by this because of course she was. There wasn’t any other option she liked more. “Obviously.”

“You’d be surprised how not obvious that can be for some people,” he sighed, but then offered a slight face of satisfaction. “Glad you aren’t part of that group.”

“I just wish I could finish school,” she said, then swallowed with wide eyes as she realized she had been far too candid for a second date. “I mean, I’m trying, but financial aid hasn’t been friendly and school is expensive, but I’m trying!”

That’s when he looked at her in the exact way Rey hoped he wouldn’t ever. He looked at her with pity. While she knew in her heart that this look didn’t mean she was less than, it felt that way every time. Every time someone asked her about school, or money, or her parents or what have you. 

“Please don’t look at me like that,” she whined, more childishly than she would have liked. Kylo was a bit older than her, she knew this when she had peeked at his ID the night they met, but the last thing she wanted was for him to view her as a child. 

“You clearly admire your education, I respect that.” He said, his expression becoming completely blank.“I wasted my time in school.”

“You seem to have a pretty cushy job for someone who thinks they ‘wasted their time’ in school,” Rey said, “most people aim for a position like yours outside of college.” _And Income._ Rey wanted to add but thought better of it, but it was clear from how he presented himself to the high rise building he worked in that he made decent money. 

“Every choice I made in school was to piss someone else off,” he started, “I was a pretentious brat.”

“Past tense?” She grinned, reaching into her purse and pulling out the Kiadi Mundi stub from the Friday before.She slammed it on the table as a sort of ‘checkmate’ on her point. 

That’s when Kylo reached into his own wallet and pulled out the same stub, and as it were his ace in the whole, slammed it on the table as well.  
  
“I’m really glad you came back.” He smiled in return.

“Me too.”

 

—

 

Rey, for the first time in her life, missed a question when called on in class because she was thinking about a _boy_.   
  
She was daydreaming about a _boy,_ a real tangible one, not just some fantasy.  
  
She apologized sheepishly for not hearing the question when the professor called her name, and he frowned and continued his lecture after a patronizing ‘pay attention.’

The advice only worked for a few minutes before she found herself musing over the passed day once more. She assumed when she would be trying to fall asleep tonight, she would realize how utterly embarrassed she should have been, but for the moment, something in her life had worked out.Something she was so actively terrified of had worked out.And the boy wanted to see her again as much as she wanted to see him.    
  
A boy even asked for her number at the end of lunch.Rey had sternly instructed him to only use it if needed because she had a pay as you go plan that she only used in case of emergencies, but despite the warning, she still childishly hoped he’d text her. 

And the boy asked her for another date on Wednesday. 

A _date_. 

She suddenly liked the sound of it. How had she changed so much over the course of a week? 

“Looks like someone’s got a _distraction_ ,” Kaydel Connix, a short blonde girl in Rey’s class, said as she leaned over Rey's shoulder once the class period had ended and everyone had begun to pack up their things. 

“What?!” Rey yelped with a little too much feigned shock to sound legitimately startled by the question. 

“I’ve never seen you miss a question, you keep randomly smiling then checking your phone, I know a crush when I see it.Who is it?” 

“I… I just met him, we’ve had a couple of dates I guess.” Rey relented, realizing that Kaydel was much more intuitive than she’d let on and lying would have been futile. 

Kaydel and Rey were friendly, but this was a giant step forward in trust saying she hadn’t even told her roommates yet.But as Rey was still dealing with the newfound wedge between her and her friends, it was sort of nice to talk about the situation with another human being.Someone who wasn’t Kylo. 

“I knew it!” Kaydel exclaimed, with a victorious fist pump, “is he a match?!”

Rey shook her head, she knew this would be the first question most anyone would ask once she told them she was _maybe_ seeing someone. Even if she knew he wasn’t her soulmate at the end of the day, it was still too early to even begin to think of a label besides a particular fondness.

“No,” Rey said, watching a particular gloom come over Kaydel as she admitted it. “But I haven’t really dated much before, and it’s good to get a bit of experience in.”

“ _Experience_?” Kaydel raised an eyebrow and laced the word in innuendo. 

“ _Not like that!”_ Rey nearly squeaked, and Kaydel laughed, “but a general partnership.And I enjoy him.”

“Is he nice?”

Rey felt an upward pull the corners of her mouth. 

“I like talking to him.” 

“Well, I hope you two have fun while it lasts.” Kaydel nudged as they walked out of the building together.

Though Rey hummed in agreement, her gut wretched in worry. The words “ _while it lasts_ ” triggering the fear she’d been working so hard to suppress. Knowing it was going to end before it could really begin. 

 

—

 

“Rey I feel like I haven’t talked to you in forever,” Rose said, climbing into the twin bed across the room from Rey’s.“We sleep in the room and I feel like you’ve been missing the last couple days!”

Rey could admit to herself that Rose was speaking from a truthful place. She knew that she was avoiding the elephant in the room. The elephants being that she firmly believed that Rose and Finn were seeing each other on a romantic level and they had been keeping it from her. _They didn’t think she could handle it._   Let alone the consequence action of that discovery leading to what made her chase down a guy she’d met by robbing him at a diner and asking him for another chance.That wasn’t a bedtime conversation. Not tonight. That was a can of worms that would cause a nuclear war when opened. 

“I’ve just been busy with school work,” Rey responded with a yawn, already in bed, bringing the blankets up to her shoulders.

“Did you… want to talk about that guy at all? The guy you went on that date with?” Rose said, meekly, afraid of Rey’s reaction. “Finn thinks you may have liked this guy a bit more than you let on, and I know it seems like a waste of time, having these markers as we do…”

“That’s what Finn said?” Rey said, pretending to not have full knowledge of their conversation and what assumptions it led too. 

“He could be wrong.Please don’t be upset, I do just want you to be happy.”She paused, waiting for Rey.“I just don’t want you to feel like you need to hide things from me.”

Rey resisted the urge to laugh like Rose had any right to say that.She looked over at her one more time and gave a soft smile.“I know.”

If Rose could have a secret, so could Rey.At least for now.

Rey turned off the lamp beside her bed, then grabbed her phone to check one last time, and her heart skipped when a notification popped up. 

 

_Kylo: I know you said only for emergencies, but I'm looking forward to seeing you on Wednesday._


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Rey tries not to jump into things too fast, but it's Rey. She gets attached very quickly. We know this. Poor thing. She touches fingers with boys she just met XD

Kaydel and Rey had become fast friends in the days since Rey had opened up to her, as small of a confession it felt like. Whether or not this friendship was initiated by Kaydel or Rey though, Rey wasn’t entirely sure, but it wasn’t unwelcome. 

When Kaydel strutted into the lecture hall on Wednesday she immediately eyed the room looking for Rey and dashed to the seat next to her once she had been located. 

“Someone is dressed up,” she said with an almost villainous grin. Rey briefly wondered if she should be concerned by the levels of attention.“Oh come on, don’t look at me like that, you wear that damn hoodie every day, and you’ve got a dress on!” 

'Dress' was a strong word.It was a long button-down shirt with a hip tie that technically served as a dress, but Rey had hoped it didn’t look too out of the ordinary.She was, apparently, very wrong. 

“Yeah, I’m meeting someone after class,” Rey mumbled despite knowing Kaydel knew exactly who this ‘someone’ was. 

“How many dates does that make this?” Kaydel leaned forward onto her elbows as the other students filed into class, lowering her voice slightly as to not include them.

“Third, technically,” Rey said, resisting a smile. She tried to avoid the urge to be angry with herself for being so swept away by the opportunity to ‘girl’ talk, but her situation at home hadn’t become any less tense, so this was a much-needed release.

“Where is he taking you?”

“I.. I don’t know,” Rey mused. The two really hadn’t discussed it.Rey’s ‘o _nly text in case of emergencies’_ clause left them to only clarify when and where they were meeting.“He’s picking me up here after class though.”

“That’s exciting!” Kaydel said, clapping her hands together.“I’m totally walking out of class with you so I can take a look. _Just so you know_.”

“Kay!” she exclaimed with a laugh, “I think you are more excited than I am.”

“I wouldn’t be in class if I didn’t love numbers, but that doesn’t mean I don’t need some outside stimulation. Let me be invested in this.”

Rey scoffed and shook her head, “don’t you have your own match to look for?”

“Already found them!” Kaydel added, beaming.“They go to school overseas though, so in the meantime, let me find your love life entertaining.”

“Wait, really?” Rey yelped, gaining the attention of the surrounding students for a moment before they starting chatting amongst themselves again. In a softer voice, she added, “why didn’t you tell me?”

“It didn’t come up! I guess I’m one of the lucky ones. We met when we were very young. They got a full scholarship to a school in Europe, so the last couple years have been hard, but I’ll be waiting when they get back.” she pointed to the back of her neck, the reddish mark reading ‘D M’.“What is your mark anyway?”She craned her neck to see if she could see beneath Rey’s hair to no success. 

“I’m keeping it to myself, at least while…” she gestured vaguely “…this whole thing is happening.”Rey reached behind her head to lift the hair to reveal a bandage covering her marker.She had put it there before class, in case her hair slipped. She didn’t want to worry about it and she didn’t want Kylo to worry about it either. 

“Mysterious. I like it.” Kaydel said with a wink.   
  
“I just don’t want it sour anything with this guy.”  
  
“Well, it will eventually.”

“…I know,” Rey sighed, after a pause that left the two women visibly uncomfortable, “but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to try to enjoy this before that.”

A loud thud garnered both of their attention as the professor dropped his suitcase onto his desk. Rey quickly opened her notebook and textbook to try to redeem herself after Monday’s callout, effectively ending her and Kaydel's discussion. 

But Kaydel looked over at her once more, and before the teacher began his lecture she whispered, “I’m still gonna try to take a peek at him after class,” and offered a playful nudge. 

And sure enough, Kaydel held her promise.The second class was dismissed Kaydel hooked her arm with Rey’s and dragged her from her seat.Rey’s bag nearly spilling over at the urgency of it. 

“Just tell me who it is, and I’ll leave you to it,” she said, trotting out of the hall. “I promise not to embarrass you.”

“Too late,” Rey chided as she was being pulled from the building.Once outside, Rey looked across the parking lot for the familiar black car that she knew belonged to Kylo.She checked her phone just in case he had texted her, but there was nothing new. _As instructed._

“That’s him, isn’t it,” Kaydel said, as Rey looked up from her phone.Sure enough, the dark-haired beast of a man that was Kylo Ren was leaning on the hood of his car, unaware he was being spotted.“Please tell me it’s him. If you are going to date someone who isn’t your soulmate, please tell me it’s him.”

“Yeah,” Rey said, almost a little stunned. She had recognized her own attraction to him the day they had met, but it still surprised her what just the sight of him did to her.His unique features and oversized almost clumsily stature were incredibly endearing. She felt herself melting looking at him waiting for her.

“He looks like some sort of French fashion model, oh my god.”Kaydel gaped, and Rey would be lying if she said that didn’t make her feel a bit proud. “Not what I was expecting for you.”

Rey shook her head dismissively. “I’ll see you next week, _Kaydel_ ”

“Have fun tonight,” she said, teasingly, as Rey walked away.Rey darted back a glare and Kaydel walked off giggling to herself.

“Hey,” Rey said, breaking Kylo from his trance of scrolling mindlessly through his phone.He jumped a bit, startled, but calmed the moment he turned to face her. 

“Hello there,” he said, the corners of his mouth raising into the slightest of smiles, and Rey found herself matching.His eyes drifted from hers then down her body, “I like your…shirt thing.”

“Thank you.” Rey could feel the red heat of embarrassment work it’s way up her neck.His stare lasted a second too long and Rey coughed to collect his attention properly once more. “So what do you have planned for us tonight?”

“I figured,” he started, walking around to his passenger side door, signaling Rey to follow, “since it’s an anniversary of sorts, dinner, and a movie?”

“Anniversary?” Rey laughed, sliding into the seat after Kylo had opened the door. “Did I miss out on the last 358 days?”

“No,” Kylo said after a brief pause walking back to the driver’s side, “but we met a week ago today. It’s a marker.”

“You have seriously low expectations for what deserves an acknowledgment,” she mocked as the car roared to life. “But as long as we go somewhere cheap... I’m working pro bono for Maz for a week to make up for, well, the night we met.”

“How about _free_?”

“I’m not letting you pay again, we can each pay our fair share like adults.”

“I can cook,” he said, pulling out of the schools parking lot and onto the main road, “I’ve also got an extensive collection of pretentious old films at my place. A free recreation, if you will.”

“That still feels like you paying…” she murmured, a little to herself. 

“I’d be cooking for myself anyway if I were alone.” He looked over at Rey to check her expression, then back to the road. “Unless you rather do something else?”

The fact was, going to his place made her nervous. She knew it didn’t mean anything particularly had to happen, but it was no longer off the table like it would have been if they were in public. And Rey didn’t want to have the ‘I’m not ready’ talk tonight. The whole inexperience thing was something she didn’t want to get into. 

As if he could read her worries, Kylo continued, “nothing else has to happen besides eating and movies, I was just trying to think of something we could do that wouldn’t make you feel guilty about money.”

Rey bit her lip. 

“I’m okay with talking about it if you are,” he started, but perhaps a bit uncomfortable on his behalf. Rey looked over at him, confused to as what he meant. “But for the future, I really don’t mind spending money on you, in fact, I sort of enjoy it.”

“I would just feel like I would owe you,”

“Can you think of it as a favor to me? I hate doing things in public, let alone by myself, so your company is really more than enough.”

“That makes me sound like a high-end escort,” Rey grumbled with a slight laugh. 

“Oh fuck, you’re totally right,” Kylo blurted out, his ears pink, “can you forget I said that?”

“Nope, but now I feel like watching Pretty Woman,” Rey said and Kylo’s shoulders animatedly dropped in relief that she didn’t seem actually insulted.“That wouldn’t happen to be in your film collection would it?”

“We can check,” he said, relenting to the idea, “so, are you okay with me cooking tonight?”

“I suppose,” Rey joked, “It just better be good!”

“It’s no Dex burger, but I’m alright.”He shrugged with a smirk and Rey settled into her seat, grinning to herself. 

 

—

 

Rey tried not to drop her jaw the moment she walked into Kylo’s home. A three-floor condo in the heart of the city that was part of the nicest development she had ever seen. The first floor had been just his garage and a laundry room with some storage, but as they headed to the second floor, in which Rey supposed to be a living area, it looked like something straight out of a museum, filled with glass display cases filled with anything from books to crystals. The dark gray interior was lined with paintings and she urgently came to the conclusion she knew nothing about the man she had followed home. 

“Not going to lie, this is not what I imagined,” Rey said as Ben shucked off his jacket, throwing it onto the coatrack near the staircase. 

“You imagined where I live?” he teased as he sauntered over to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. 

“Don’t flatter yourself." Rey sat at a barstool by the counter and watched him as he tossed a thawed out steak onto the tabletop. “I’m just saying I didn’t expect a certified museum.”

“I enjoy art,” he said matter-of-factly. “well, mostly just the thrill of the hunt.”

“You found these? Are you an archeologist or something?”

“An archeologist of antique shops and galleries, I guess.”He quirked a brow. “Why does this surprise you? I believe we’ve already clarified my enjoyment of _pretentious_ entertainment.”

“I know, I just kinda figured since you are a numbers guy your place would have been a little more bare bones.” 

“The last place I want to come home too is a place that looks exactly like where I work.”

“I guess that makes sense.” 

“Hey, I almost forgot, I got something for you,” he said, popping up from setting the oven temperature. 

“You didn’t have too-“ Rey began and Kylo reached into his pocket to pull out his wallet and he slid something from it over to her. “A phone card?”

“Yeah, I want to be able to talk to you on the days I can’t see you in person.”

“How do you know I’ll still want to talk to you after I try your cooking?” she said in jest, picking up the card and using it to point at him accusingly. 

“I’ve got a good feeling about it.” 

He wasn’t wrong. 

He was a _very_ good cook.

Rey finished her plate within ten minutes while Kylo was just barely beginning to cut into his steak. 

“There is another potato in the bottom oven, and more brussels sprouts as well,” he said, after watching her scrape her plate. 

“How did you make _brussels sprouts_ taste good?” 

“It’s easy, I can show you sometime.” 

“Okay, is there anything you aren’t good at? Just so we can get that out of the way?”

“Wearing button up shirts. None of them fit.”

“That doesn’t count. That was just a humble brag about how wide your chest is.”

“Um, I can’t draw? I really like art but I can’t draw myself.”

Rey lit up. “Really!?”

“You seem really excited about that,” he said, confused, if not frowning a bit. 

“My electives are always drawing classes, at first it was to help me draw out blueprints and designs, but then I found out I really liked it.” She couldn’t stop herself from smiling, “so how about you teach me how to make brussels sprouts taste like heaven, and I’ll teach you how to draw a bowl of fruit or something.”

“Sounds like a fair trade,” he said, leaning in, and Rey’s heart jumped. 

_Oh no. She liked him. She really liked him._

“So what do you want to watch?” Rey coughed, snapping herself out of her thoughts, “I’m sure one of those glass cases is filled with old film reels, right?”

“… no.”

“Liar.”

“I don’t have a projector if that makes you feel any better. So those are off the table. I thought you wanted to watch that Pretty Woman movie?”

“Don’t pretend like you haven’t heard of it.”

“Fine, I’m pretty sure I have a copy anyway, it’s a classic. Check the cabinets around the television. In order by release date.”

“Now _there_ is some of that Type A personality I was expecting,” Rey said, hopping off her chair, brushing his shoulder as she passed.She skipped over to the television set, nestled between two displays of different colored stones, and started sifting through his collection until she reached the start of the ’90s. Sure enough, he had it.Alongside a copy of Dances with Wolves and a more surprising copy of Kindergarten Cop.

“Found it!” she sang and Kylo hummed with a full mouth in acknowledgment, still finishing his meal.She popped the disc into the player and threw herself onto the couch.She heard a shuffling of plates behind her as Kylo set the dishes into the sink, and a few moments later he plopped down next to her, leaving a healthy space between them. Tossing his arms alongside the back of the couch.

The opening credits rolled and Rey swung her feet up onto the sofa, nesting herself next to the armrest, then looking over to Kylo to see if that was okay.She wasn’t sure, but there seemed to be a good chance he was the kind of person who didn’t allow feet on couches.He seemed unbothered though, not even glancing in her direction.

That’s when it started happening.

She didn’t know how. She didn’t know when. But over the course of the film's opening, she had drifted closer to him.At first, she swore it was him, and she was just crazy. But he leaned on the armrest opposite her and yet she still found herself getting closer to him. A part of her was convinced it was the couch shrinking. 

Then her toes unintentionally touched his thigh and he finally noticed. Taking his first conscious effort towards her. 

_What on earth was she doing?_

She shifted her weight from one hip to the other, so she sat straight against the back cushions. Painfully aware that she shouldn't be sitting in such a way in a dress. 

His body heat radiated through his clothes like a furnace and Rey could feel it nearly scald her skin.Her pulse pounded in her ears to the point where she could no longer hear any outside noises. The film went silent. She knew if she looked up at him, it would be over. She had never been kissed. Not properly at least.Maybe her parents had kissed her when she was a baby, she wasn’t sure, but never had she really kissed someone on the lips in the way most people thought of it. 

His fingers, once around the back of the couch, now careful began to play with the ends of her hair, working up until he reached the roots at the base of her neck. Each movement was so delicate and tender that Rey wasn’t entirely sure she even took a human form any longer, and that she wasn’t just a ball of putty. 

Suddenly, his hand stopped. He trailed down and certainly noticed that Rey had a bandage over the back of her neck. He lifted the back of her hair and Rey winced, embarrassed she had even tried to hide it now.

“A bandage?” He said, his voice deep, his mind clearly elsewhere.

“Yeah…” Rey replied, not quite in control of her own voice either, looking dead ahead at the screen.

“You really don’t want me to know, do you?”

“It’s not that, really,” she said, “it’s that I don’t want to think about it when I’m with you. I just want to enjoy this. I don’t want you thinking about it either.”

“Would you prefer if I hid mine around you as well?” He pointed to the back of his neck and Rey quickly looked back to where he pointed, avoiding his eyes at all costs. 

“No, it’s fine,” she craned her neck back to attempt to look at his mark, “you are too tall anyway, I can’t see it from here, plus I already know it.”

His gaze was cutting through her.It was burning a hole straight through. _All she had to do was look._ She swallowed audibly as her eyes finally met his and she shocked herself when she ended up being the one who leaned forward. While her movements were slow, once her intentions were clear, Kylo’s lips were on hers in an instant. 

His hands found their way back into her hair, and Rey melted into his caress.Deepening the kiss with her best efforts, despite her lack of knowing exactly what to do, but he didn’t seem to notice or mind as his tongue prodded at her bottom lip.

Then she, being the master of self-sabotage as she was, flung her thigh over his lap until she was fully seated on top of him, cupping his face fiercely within her palms.She couldn’t think straight. Her sensible brain kept telling her to pull back, but her heart kept her firmly in place, lips pressed tightly to his. His hands gripped at her waist as a guttural almost animalistic groan escaped his mouth, and instead of scaring her, this only spurred Rey to want to make him make this noise again. 

She needed to stop. Her logical side screamed. 

_If you don’t pull back now you won’t be able to stop later.You don’t want to do something you might regret._

But her heart couldn’t fathom regretting this. His hands drifted up her back as he gently began to lean them both horizontally onto the couch, still a mess of lips and tongue. Never disconnecting.It wasn’t until Rey was fully on her back, with him hovering over her when she was able to move her hands to just chest and gently push him back.Both of them panting heavily the moment their lips parted.

“Are you okay?” he asked with genuine concern after taking a second to gather his breath. 

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, tearing her gaze away from his sympathetic eyes, “I got a little carried away.”

“I don’t mind,” he laughed, unmoving, waiting for a signal of some kind. “Unless you want to stop?”

The truth was, she didn’t.But she needed too, as much as her body claimed to need him.She had let herself get swept away by this whole situation far too quickly, and the last thing Rey needed was to let herself get attached to someone who was guaranteed to leave her.She was allowing herself to like him.Allowing herself to spend time with him. Learn about him. And now she was allowing herself to kiss him.But _needing_ him, was something she would not allow. 

“I think I have too,” she said, a bit embarrassed, “It’s a little fast… _for me_.”

Fast was an understatement. Before tonight she’d never been kissed and within seconds of that, she was grinding herself against him in a dress for god's sake.Rey was usually good at waiting. She had been a patient person her entire life.What about him made that so easy to throw out the window?

He probably assumed a lot from her actions about her levels of experience. A lot of those assumptions were probably wrong. She knew that she probably should tell him, and that would probably make him understanding, but the louder part of her told her that it would scare him away. So she didn’t say anything more. 

“That’s fine,” he said, his voice hitching. He sat up and let Rey scramble out from underneath him.“I meant what I said earlier, this can just be dinner and a movie.”

“I think that’s what I want,” Rey replied, still unable to process her own thoughts. Her heart still pounding in her chest like they had never stopped. “I don’t know what came over me, I’m sorry, I swear I’m never like that.” _Never._

Kylo hummed, still trying to bring himself down, and pulled a throw blanket from the back of the couch and tossed it over them both. 

“Never apologize for that,” he said, sternly, in a way that didn’t really make her feel any better. But then he slung his arm around her, sinking back into the couch and with a light chuckle he added, “I rather watch this movie anyway.”

“ _Liar_ ,” she said in a near whisper with a twin smirk, putting her hand over his chest as she leaned into him. Loving how his warmth felt on her fingertips.He kissed her hairline and she closed her eyes just to listen to his beating heart under her ear.

_Oh no. He liked her. He really liked her._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember when we all thought Reylo would be a slow burn then TLJ was like "Naw, two days later she's thinking about touching his hair and shipping herself to him in a box"
> 
> I'll probably do another edit run tonight, but I won't be home until later than usual so I wanted to get this chapter out now! To think I thought I would miss this update, and it ended up being my longest chapter yet! Thanks for the amazing response on the last two chapters, means the world to me, and apparently spurs longer chapters, ha!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for any editing mistakes. I'm nursing a headache right now so once that's faded I'll be back for another edit pass.

 Kylo woke to the incessant sound of _buzzing_. The first time he heard it he had drifted back to sleep in a matter of seconds. The second time, one of his eyes had managed to open and look for the source, but his sight was too bleary from slumber and he closed them again once it stopped. The third time though, he was awake and slightly miffed. He shifted lightly to discover he had fallen asleep sitting up, a decision his back would surely hate him for, and as he shifted he heard a disgruntled moan from his side.

_Rey.  
_  
She’d fallen asleep against him, nose pressed into his chest.After a groan of displeasure from being disturbed, she went quiet again and Kylo did his best to get up without interrupting her any further to find that damn source of buzzing.He managed to stand after a swift twisting maneuver and looked out the window. It was still dark. They couldn’t have been asleep for that long. He walked toward the kitchen to where the buzzing was at it’s loudest.

Sure enough, it resonated from Rey’s school bag, and Kylo unzipped the top of it to see her cellphone going off relentlessly. 

_Missed Call 3:01 AM: Finn_

_Missed Call 3:07 AM: Finn_

_Missed Message 3:15 AM: Finn  
_ _Rey, where are you? Please check in_  
  
Missed Cal 3:25 AM: Finn

He grabbed the device and walked back towards the couch where Rey had taken the opportunity, in his absence, to spread out across the entire thing, still dead asleep.He allowed himself to watch her for a brief moment, slowly breathing, seemingly at peace, before kneeling at her side.

“Rey,” he said lowly, trying not to startle her, “Rey, sweetheart, your phone keeps going off.”

She groaned again, swatting her hand at him, blissfully unaware. 

“Someone named Finn? Is that one of your roommates?” 

Rey’s eyes darted open in that instant and she scrambled to sit up. “Shit. Shit shit shit.” She reached forward and grabbed the phone from him and continued to curse rapidly. 

“Are you alri-“ Kylo started and Rey immediately hushed him, pressing her free hand to his mouth while she held up the phone to her ear with the other.  

Through the receiver, Kylo could here a man’s voice cry out, “Rey!?”

“Hey Finn, what’s up?” Rey said, trying to sound as casual as possible, her hand still pressed to Kylo’s lips. Kylo pursed his lips ever so slightly and Rey's eyes went wide. 

“Don’t “Hey Finn” me, I’ve been worried sick! Where are you?”

“I, uh, was studying at a friends house and I fell asleep.”  Rey looked at the ceiling and lowered her voice as if she was hoping Kylo couldn't hear her.

Kylo raised a brow.Rey mouthed a quick ‘I’m sorry’ to him before continuing. 

“We were scared shitless, Rey! Poe was ready to call his squad and start a search for you.”

“I know, I’m sorry, I’m fine I promise.”

“Do you need a ride home? Poe’s out on patrol and I’m sure he’d come to get you. I need to call him and tell him you are alright.”

Rey looked at Kylo for a second, pondering her answer before saying, “Yes, I’ll text him the address.Sorry, I scared you guys, but you know I’m trying to save minutes on my phone. I’ll be home soon.”

Rey put the phone down and finally dropped her hand from Kylo’s mouth.

“Sorry about that,” she said, face flushed. 

“I’m a _female study buddy_?” he replied, meaning it to be more of a joke than a criticism, but Rey was quick on the reply. 

“I haven’t really told them about you,” she said, “It’s complicated.”

Everything about this was complicated. He understood. He hadn't told any of his friends about her yet, but in his defense, he really didn't have friends. 

“One of my roommates is a police officer,” Rey started, tapping away on her phone, “He’ll pick me up.”  
  
"Is that a threat?" Kylo joked. 

"Yes." Rey pushed him back lightly and stood from the couch.  Kylo rising along with her.

“You know, you could have stayed here if you wanted,” he said, inches away from her. Her eyes glassy as she looked up at him. 

“I wouldn-“

“I’ve got an extra bedroom, bathroom and all,” he said, gesturing to the staircase, “nothing else implied.”

“...Thank you.”

“When can I see you again…”

Rey scrunched her nose and thought, “I have class tomorrow, and I’m working for Maz all weekend.”She cocked her head. “Do you want to stop by the diner on Friday? I can cook for you!”  
  
“You cook at the diner?”

“Well, no, but I’ll bring it out to you.” She smiled. “I’ll sneak you extra fries, though.”

“I’ll be there.”

She hesitated for a moment before bouncing up on her toes and kissing the tip of his nose. He honestly wasn't sure if it was intentional or she just missed. 

 

—

 

Kylo sat outside Snoke’s office for his scheduled monthly appointment to be chewed out for something that wasn’t his fault.Hux was in there first. He could hear Snoke’s decrepit voice berating him through the walls.Kylo found some joy in this, but he couldn’t enjoy it to his fullest potential because he knew he was next.

He pulled out his phone, looking for some sort of distraction while he awaited death, and opened up his nearly nonexistent text chain with Rey.

He wanted to talk to her. Send a good morning or what have you text.He had given her the phone card for that very purpose.But it still made him nervous. 

As if somewhere she could read his mind, his phone pinged. 

_Rey: Thanks for the phone card, by the way, I never properly thanked you._

_Kylo: You just doubted my cooking skills instead._

_Rey: A wrongful assumption. But still, thank you. You still on for Friday?_

_Kylo: If I survive the day._

_Rey: I’m rooting for you._

He fought back the urge to smile. If only because Snoke’s offices were filled with security cameras and somehow that footage of him would be used to blackmail him for years to come.Luckily that urge faded quickly as Hux shuffled out of Snoke’s room, face red, and veins popping.A ginger version of his future, he assumed. 

Hux didn’t even look in his direction before he nearly dove into the elevator.Rapidly pressing any button that would take him away from this floor. He had escaped with his life today, and Kylo wasn’t so sure he’d be as lucky.

Sure, Snoke wouldn’t _actually_ kill him.But at the same time, Kylo wasn’t entirely sure if that was true. 

“REN.” the voice boomed from within, beckoning him to the sacrifice. Kylo leaned forward, getting off of his chair and dragged his feet into the room. Already looking like a kicked dog.

“Snoke,” Kylo replied, cooly, despite his physical shame. 

“My boy, it’s been far too long.” Snoke started. His voice becoming low. Kylo was used to this, Snoke liked to lull his employees into a false sense of security before ravaging their flesh. “You haven’t stopped by recently.”

“It’s a busy time of year, as you know.” Kylo played along. 

“Armitage has informed me that you are the one to talk to about the Dedlanite mining investments going under. We had a lot riding on that, son.” His voice was still calm and it made Kylo wince. 

“I advised against all Dedlanite investments. After the Starkiller investments sir, there was no point, I have the documents to prove-“

“ENOUGH,” Snoke bellowed and Kylo swore the shout echoed off the walls just to daunt him from all directions. “I didn’t hire you on to make excuses, I hired you to make us money.”

Kylo pressed his lips together in a tight line. The two men stared at each other, and Kylo knew Snoke was daring him to speak again. He resisted. 

“Isn’t that what you want?” Snoke continued, his voice suddenly more gentle, “That’s why you were so eager to join us, wasn’t it? It didn’t take much convincing for you to leave your Uncle’s firm.It took even less to convince you to take him down with you.”

Kylo nodded, looking down at his toes like a child. 

“I risked my own tail for you, getting you out of that mess.” Snoke chided, clicking his tongue, “and this is how you repay me?”

“I told you Starkiller wouldn’t work, it’s been done before.It may have had an impact when it was done the first time, but it just doesn’t work in today's climate-” 

“It was your job to make it work. We had very powerful people risking a lot to make it work. I don’t care what you have to do, you make it work.”

Kylo took a breath. So many more words on his tongue.“Yes, sir.”

“I don’t want to see these mistakes again. I will not be embarrassed like this. One more slip up and you’ll end up like your uncle.”his voice became lower, menacing, threatening, “it would be an awful shame if that happened to you.”

After a moment, Kylo relented. “I understand.” 

He turned, leaving the old man’s office, feeling as if a shotgun was pointed to the back of his head as he walked. 

When he made it back to his office he collapsed in his chair, putting his face down into his palms. Emotions swirled and anger pulsed in his veins. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could put up with this utter humiliation and guilt.He’d given everything to this man on the top floor and he couldn’t be bothered to show even the slightest of appreciation. 

That's when his office phone rang.   
  
Without thinking twice he answered it.

“Hello,”he grumbled, too distracted for a more formal greeting.

“ _Ben_? Is that you?” 

A woman’s voice. Older. Almost raspy. 

The anger in his veins turned into white-hot fear. He slammed the phone back down onto the receiver.He stared at the machine on his desk as if it were about to burst into flames and take the whole building down with it. 

The phone rang again. He let it ring. Once. Twice. Three times. Each time it rang it paralyzed him. He let it ring until voicemail picked up. 

Then that voice spoke again. “So, it _is_ you.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which "reveals" in fan fiction aren't really reveals because everyone knows it anyway XD  
> Anyway, early update this week (So no update on Thursday) cause I will be out of town. But hope you don't mind the mini update! We will return to the normal schedule next Thursday :D


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rey doesn't know how to control herself, the heart and brain at war.  
> Kylo doesn't mind. 
> 
> Last Time:  
> Rey invited Kylo to the Diner for dinner.  
> Kylo gets chewed out by Snoke, where after he receives a mysterious phone call, which is 100% his mother you all knew that. No use hiding it :D

 

Rey kept peeking her head out the swinging kitchen door to see if he’d shown up yet. He promised he’d be there. He hadn’t given an exact time. But he promised. He said work was keeping him late a few hours ago, but it was almost 8:30. 

“Alright, Rey. If you look out that door one more time without taking an order with you I’m going to have to dock your already non-existent pay for the week,” Maz joked, gesturing at her with a spatula from the grill. 

“I’m sorry, Maz.”

“What’s got you so eager tonight anyway?” she said, returning to flipping burger patties. “Are your friends coming in? It’s been a while since they stopped by.”

“I suppose.”

“Oh good, I always liked that friend Poe of yours, he’s handsome.”

“And gay, Maz.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the view.” The woman laughed and Rey sighed, quickly looking out the door again hoping that Maz wouldn’t notice.

“Rey!” she snapped.

“Sorry.”Rey walked over to Maz who was carefully sliding the burgers onto their buns then plopping them down on two separate plates. 

“Take these to table 7,” she instructed, and Rey balanced the plates on her arms and started back towards the door, carefully looking outside it, scanning the room before exiting. 

“Okay, who are you really waiting for?” Maz groaned, and Rey let the door swing shut with the plates still in hand.  
  
“Hmm?”

“I’ve seen those eyes, you’ve been _bitten_.”Maz fluttered her large eyes mockingly.

“Bitten?”  
  
“By a love bug, of course.So who is he? You are never this nervous waiting for your friends.”  
  
“Uh, it’s not important.”

“Come on, Rey, even if he’s not your soulmate, I still want to know.”

“It’s, uh, actually the guy from last week.”

“The tall broody one in the suit?”

“…yeah.”

“Who you tried to rob?”

“…yeah.”

“Men are a strange species,” she said without further interrogation as if she expected this and went to put a fresh slab of meat in the oven. 

Rey heard the bell on the door jingle, signifying a new customer walking in.Rey looked out the circle window on the door and sure enough, it was him.She couldn’t help herself but smile like an idiot, and Maz laughed from behind.

“I assume your man is here?”

“I said I’d throw in a free side of fries if that's okay, Maz,” Rey said, preparing herself to exit.

“After one of my employees tried to rob him, tell him the whole meal is on the house,” Maz said, rolling her eyes at Rey while prepping a new order with spices.“Take those out to table seven and get that boys order.”

Rey looked down at the plates in her hands that she almost forget about and backed up against the door to push it open with her shoulder, taking a deep breathe and trying to act as casual as possible. 

She brushed by him without acknowledging him, pretending to be overloaded with work, and dropped off the plates.She started back towards the kitchen and glanced over at Kylo who had taken a seat at the counter and she feigned surprise when he was propped up on his elbow looking at her. 

“Kylo, I didn't see you!”

“Liar,” he smirked, like the smug asshole he was. 

The smug asshole that she was always struck by every time she looked at him.He really did belong in a different time. Artists of the Renaissance would have loved carving him out of stone. 

“Shut up,” she mumbled, walking behind the counter and taking out her order pad. “So, what can I get you? Maz says the whole meal is on the house tonight.”

He looked surprised  
  
 “More employees at restaurants need to try to pick-pocket me.I’ll eat free for years,” he teased and Rey sighed.

“Just don’t start dating all of them,” she said, at first unaware of the implied jealousy. Even more unaware of her declaration that whatever they were doing was officially labeled as dating.Sure, they had gone on dates.But dating implied a step up.At least in her mind, it did. She immediately felt a flush work it's way up her neck. 

“Why is that?” he said with one raised eyebrow, leaning over the counter. Trying to coax her reasoning out of her in more obvious words.  
  
“I should, uh, get back to work I guess,” she said, and Kylo nodded, satisfied at her flustered state.She started walking back to the kitchen, red-faced before he called out to her again.

“Can you read minds now?” he said.

“What?”

“You asked for my order and walked away before I could give it to you.”

Rey cursed at herself. She couldn’t act cool for three minutes. 

“Let me guess, burger and fries?” Rey said, knowing his fast food habit was a good indicator of what he may want.

“I’ll be here waiting.” He sounded pleased. 

She could feel his eyes on her when she walked away.  It was her turn to feel oddly satisfied.

Rey tried her best to stay focused. Rey would call out orders and she would eventually run them out to the appropriate tables. She only got the wrong table… twice.His presence was distracting, and she started to think to ask him here was a bad idea because she could not pull herself away from him. It was a magnetic pull. And every time she’d go back to the kitchen to help Maz, she ended up just peeking through the window to look at him. Trying to understand why she was so drawn to him. 

“Rey you are more of a nuisance than you are help in this state,” Maz said, coming through the door and nearly hitting Rey with it once more as she looked through. 

“Sorry, Maz, you’re so tiny I can’t see you through the door window.”

“Shouldn’t you be clearing plates or something instead of ogling your male… friend from the kitchen.”

“I want him to think I’m busy.”

“You know you actually _could_ be busy if you weren’t so distracted by trying to look busy.”

“…sorry.”

“Rey, I don’t need to know where you go home tonight, but go home.”

“What? It’s only 9:30?”

“The rush is over, I can handle the late nighters. Go have fun with your friend. Not too much fun, but heck, I have eyes, you can have a little bit of fun.”

“Maz!” Rey exclaimed, blushing for what felt like the 100th time that night. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” Rey said, deciding not to press her luck any further and taking the favor. She smiled at the old woman who barely stood up to her chest.Rey grabbed her jacket and bag from the employee coatrack and rushed out the door, looking at Kylo who jumped up a little at her reappearance. 

“Do you want to go?” Rey said, impatient.Almost afraid Maz would change her mind.

“Are you escaping from something?” Kylo said, tilting his head, but intrigued at her urgency. 

“Maz said I could go, and I don’t want her to change her mind.” Rey lowered her voice, not wanting the older woman to hear her.Rey scooted around the counter and grabbed Kylo from the collar of his jacket and pulled him from his barstool as if time was running out.Which for them, she supposed it was. 

Kylo stumbled to follow as he quickly threw a 20 dollar bill on the counter despite Maz telling him it was on the house. The entry bell rang as they exited and Rey dragged him out into the autumn night air. She pulled him forward a few more feet before realizing she had no idea where his car was.

“Where did you park?” she said, panting slightly from all the pulling. He’d been surprisingly resistant if only to be an ass. 

“Where are you so quick to get too?” he asked, stepping forward, hand reaching out to rest on her waist and Rey’s heart pounded.Before she was even aware of what she was doing, she was yanking him into the alley where they had first… met, and pressed her lips against his with a vigor she didn’t even know possible.

He parted from her for a moment to say, “if this is some elaborate plan to rob me again, I will let you know, it’s working,” before pushing her into the brick wall behind them and kissing her again with a matched enthusiasm.

Rey had no idea who she was around him. It was a concept that terrified her and thrilled her at the same time. She had lived a lifetime avoiding most types of intimacy, especially intimacy of the physical sort, but something about him made her eager to try it.  Something about him made this feel right.But as she sank into the embrace, the voice in the back of her mind reminded her of the painful truth of their situation. 

“Kylo,” Rey said, breathily, pushing him back to reveal a disappointed pout, “I have to tell you something.”  
  
“I know,” he said, the pout turning to shame, unable to meet her eyes. “Slower.”

Rey’s chest warmed as she found herself to be the one no longer able to look at him straight, “Yes, but, something else too.”

“Oh?”

“I, well,” she started, unnaturally embarrassed even though she knew she didn’t need to be. Her experience was her choice. “This whole dating thing, I’ve never really done before.”

“You were waiting for your... match,” he said, matter-of-factly, like he understood where she was going. 

“Yes but that means I don’t have a lot of experience with dating.”

He blinked.

“Yes, that’s what you said.”

Rey knew he didn’t get it. Rey may not have a ton of experience with dating but she understood men's density well enough.

“Meaning, a lot of this is new for me. A lot of this I was… saving.”

His eyes squinted in confusion as if focusing his eyesight would make her message more clear. 

“Are you really that dense?” Rey blurted out and Kylo’s eyes went from small to wide as his intelligence was questioned. “I’m a virgin. In every sense of the word. So none of the physical stuff comes naturally to me. It’s all new.”

Kylo stepped back and Rey thought her fear had been realized. His eyes were still wide from shock and his mouth opened slightly. 

“Look, if that means you don’t want to see me anymore I get it-“ Rey started again, wanting to say the words before he could. 

“Not at all!” he interjected, waving his hands in front of him, then bringing them up into his hair, “I just didn’t expect that, I mean, have you _looked_ at you?”

Rey cocked her head, unsure if she should be insulted. The choices she made with her body were hers, and her appearance wouldn’t change that. “What is that supposed to mean?” she said, a bit accusingly. 

“Nothing.” He shook his head, tossing the idea from his mind. “So, uh, you just to let me know.”

“Let you know what?”

“When you want something more…” he paused, clearly vexed, swallowing hard, “physical.”

It was her turn to be stunned silent.While they were alone in this alley, it was still painfully indisputable that they were in a public space.And her physical needs in a very new relationship was the last thing she needed some passerby to hear.

“ _If,”_ Rey whispered, staring down at her feet. 

“If?”

“I’m not sure I want that, yet,” she clarified, as much as she could to save his feelings or rather his ego, “a part of me thinks I want to… save it.”

“Oh,” he said again, trying not to look hurt, but Rey could tell a part of him was disappointed. 

“I don’t want to talk about soulmates around you, and I know very well that mine may not have waited, and I don’t care, but a part of me thinks that feels right… for me.” 

“That’s fine.” 

“It is?”

“I, uh, didn’t wait,” he said, unsure if he should confess that or not.  Unsure if she wanted him to confess that.

“I assumed.”

“I was lonely and frustrated-“

“You don’t need to explain yourself. You did what felt right for you.”The wind sent a howl down the alley. “So, uh, do you still want to hang out?”

“ _Please_.”

Rey stepped closer and popped up on her toes to kiss him tenderly on the lips. It was a slow kiss, but still chaste. She liked kissing him. His arms wrapped around her waist and brought her in closer. 

“So, this is still alright?” he said, pulling away only an inch. 

She nodded silently, only looking at his lips and wanting them again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, the new chapter is a day late! Had a hard time putting anything on paper this week, and I don't sense a motivation wave coming soon. So I'm gonna say it might be a skipped week next week unless that inspiration comes back!! Thank you guys for reading, I hope you enjoy.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been a while:  
> RECAP  
> Rey and Kylo have another date night at the diner, and it ends with Rey setting up boundaries for their physical relationship, those boundaries being that it will be limited.   
> Also Leia called.

He hadn’t slept in the days since he heard his mother’s voice on that voice message. Rey, now assuringly sleeping across the hall, wasn't helping that situation in the slightest either. It wasn’t a bad feeling, having her here, but he missed her. She had been willing to spend the night, given the boundaries he’d offered in nights prior that she could sleep in the guest room, and that in itself brought him a certain amount of joy. But now, she seemed so far away despite only two doors separating them and he had the gall to actually miss her. 

She’d cast a spell over him, that was a promise. He wasn’t sure how it was biologically possible to be so invested in someone without the possibility of a future. Whatever higher being was out there had a cruel sense of humor. The God from above was surely looking down at him and laughing at his pain. 

But Rey had set up firm lines. Anything physical was off the table. But in the back of Kylo’s dumb lizard brain, her words saying ‘a part of me _thinks_ ’ repeated themselves.The word ‘think’ standing out in giant neon letters. She might change her mind. She even thought it was possible. 

He threw a pillow over his head and groaned into it. 

He couldn’t think like that. He wasn’t going to stay with her because a part of him thought she could change her mind about intimacy. He could have a meaningful relationship without the added pressures of sex. Now, if only his body would listen to that advice.

He craved her like a midnight snack, but the thought of doing anything to 'soothe' that craving with her so close felt like a violation.He wasn’t against the act when he was alone by any means, but it felt like a breach of trust with her just two doors away.

Two doors away.

Then he heard three small raps at the wall. So light he was unsure they even happened. He sat up from his bed and turned on the lamp at his bedside and looked towards the door where he could see a shadow waver from underneath it. 

He stared at the door as if a demon was about to come through it. 

“Rey?” he said, knowing there was a very little possibility it was anyone else. 

“Yeah,” she responded, almost sounding embarrassed from the other side. “Can I come in?”

He sat up even straighter, brushing back his hair. “Of course.”

The door creaked open and her silhouette appeared in the dark doorway. She took a small step into the light of his room and swayed awkwardly, pulling at the t-shirt he’d given her to sleep in at the hem. 

“Is something wrong?” he asked, swinging his legs over the bedside to go meet her.“Do you need me to take you home?”

“No,” she shook her head, her loose hair moving against her shoulders. “I just… I couldn’t sleep.”

He sat on the edge of his mattress, staring up at her. “Do you want to watch another movie or something?” He looked over at the clock that read 2 AM. 

“Not really,” she yawned, the red of her cheeks deepening. Kylo was thankful for that answer because he didn’t think he could sort of manage to watch anything, but maybe that would have been the distraction he needed to fall asleep.

“Do… you want something to eat?” he swallowed, and he started to think Rey didn’t even know why she came in here. 

“No.” She bit her lip. “Um, I know I’m giving you mixed signals. I’m sorry if all this is confusing.”

He only nodded, assuming she had more to say but didn’t. They both waited in an unbearable silence in the dim lighting of his bedroom for the other to speak. But then he knew what she was asking. She’d felt the same ache of loneliness from the room over. Kylo lifted his legs back onto the bed and pulled down the comforter in the spot next to him, making room for her to join him.

Rey looked wide-eyed at the gesture and Kylo feared he had misinterpreted. 

“Just sleep,” he clarified, so she wouldn’t have too. 

“Just sleep,” she echoed, mumbled under her breathe, assuring herself that it was okay. She padded over to the bed and carefully brought the covers over her self.Her breathing was slow and steady in a desperate attempt not to seem nervous, but her furrowed brow gave her away. 

Kylo watched as she slid down, placing her head on the pillow, pulling the comforter so far up that is covered half of her face. “You alright?” he asked.

Her eyes fluttered and he could see the tension escape her as she sunk into the mattress. “Yes.” 

He clicked off the light and gradually made his way down to his back.He stared blankly up at the ceiling for a few seconds before glancing over at Rey and making out in the dark that she was doing the same thing.Her brows still lowered as if she was contemplating something else she wanted to say.He flipped onto his side to face her and she finally looked in his direction, turning onto her shoulder as well. 

“Is this normal?” Rey asked, looking through him rather than at him. 

“I don’t know,” he said woefully, saddened he could not give her an answer that would satisfy. Because he didn’t think this _was_ normal. Not for people who would eventually have to part ways. 

They both moved almost magnetically towards each other to the center of the bed, where Kylo swung his arm Rey’s waist and she grasped at his chest, rearranging to use his other arm as a pillow.They melted into one another and the worries of the days past faded for a minute, just long enough to bring much-needed sleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, it's been so long and this was basically a filler chapter. Celebration and everything knocked the wind out of me! I hope to get back into the swing of things soon, with usual Thursday updates again (Not this next Thursday, but after that!)


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So somehow two weeks went by and I apologize for that! I didn't even know where that first week went: 
> 
> Recap:  
> Rey is sleeping over at Kylo's now, albeit her physical boundaries are still up. Rey keeps her initials hidden and the pain of knowing his is getting to her in the worst sort of way.

It was easier to pretend if she didn’t tell him.

It was easier to pretend there wasn’t some inevitable ending to their time together if she didn’t tell him the truth.

It was easier to pretend he was the one if she didn’t tell him.

That’s what Rey chose to think.

He didn’t press for it. Every now and then his fingers would brush against the bandage on the back of her neck and he would still like he had touched something that had pricked or burned him, but neither chose to discuss it further. 

There wasn’t a point in telling him. She knew the back of her neck wasn’t ‘K.R.’

He figured that out too. 

None of her past mattered.All of the excuses that came fluttering to her mind when she thought about the initials he carried didn’t matter.The fact he carried one of her initials didn’t matter. The personal connection they felt didn’t matter. All four had to match for any of it to matter.  The 'R.K.' and 'K.R.' had to match. 

Rey buried her face in her pillow. She’d reluctantly, on both their behalf's, decided to spend the next week in her own bed, since it was the week of her finals. It felt like sabotage spending the days alone, but the sensible part of her brain still functioned enough to tell her that her education for a week had to take priority. 

She’d been sleeping in the same bed as him on average three nights a week for the last month. It may have been higher if it weren’t for the fact they Rey didn’t want her roommates asking too many questions, which surely they were doing amongst themselves. They didn’t even question Rey’s ‘study group’ sleepovers to her face, but surely they weren’t dumb enough to think that was actually the truth. 

It was becoming easier to share a bed just for the sake of sharing a bed, rather than the added implications that something physical had to happen between them. Even though Rey knew she was the one who had put these barriers up, her body was doing everything in its power to take them down. She was attracted to him. Inexplicably so. It would be foolish to deny that her body didn’t call out for something more when he wrapped his arms around her at night. 

Not that she would say that. She’d be mortified if he knew that. 

But when he pressed his lips to the shell of her ear in sleepy haze each morning, it was getting harder and harder to keep that secret. 

Rey hated being in her own bed. 

She looked over at Rose who was cocooned up in blankets on the other side of the room, fast asleep. She wondered if Finn slept in here while Rey was gone, then she immediately regretted wondering that.Slowly, she swung her legs over the side of her bed and began packing up her notebooks on her desk to meet Kay for an early morning cram session. 

Rose shuffled and Rey turned to see that she had awakened. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up,” Rey said, still in a whisper.

“It’s alright, I need to get up for work anyway,” Rose said, stretching out in her bed dramatically like a starfish, following that with a loud groan. 

“I’ll be out of your hair soon, I’m meeting Kaydel before our test today.”

Rose was silent for a second. “Today is your last final, right?”

Rey hummed in confirmation. 

“Do you want to go out tonight? And celebrate?”   
  
There was something heartbreaking and hopeful in her voice. Rey looked up at her and saw the expression that matched the tone. Rose offered a sad smile, acknowledging something was strange between them, and Rey zipped up her bag.

“Um, I can’t tonight, I’m going out with my classmates.” She lied. “Maybe this weekend?”

“Rey is something wrong?” Rose admitted, sitting up fully on the edge of her bed. “You’ve been acting strangely for weeks now.”

“Just stressed with school.” _A partial lie._ “I’m sorry if you feel like I’ve been taking it out on you.”

“You can talk to us, you know. All three of us. We are all worried.”

“You don’t need to worry, I’m fine.” Rey swung her bag over her shoulder and headed towards their bedroom door. She had half a mind to say ‘you know you can talk to me too’, but she honestly wasn’t sure if that was true. 

** — **

Kaydel was slumped over a pile of notebooks when Rey walked into the campus coffee shop.She had two empty coffee cups already by the time Rey had sat down across from her.She jumped up with a jolt and breathed a sigh of relief to see it was only Rey. 

“Thank god it’s the last day of this shit,” Kay sighed, lifting up one of her empty coffee cups begging for one more drop.“I’m not sure how much more I can take of this.”

“Until next semester,” Rey mused, opening up her own notebook and running down the equations with a finger. 

“Don’t remind me. Why did we decide to be engineers again?”

“Ask me again later,” Rey laughed. 

“Are you doing anything after class tonight?” Kay leaned in, “ _Anyo_ -“

“Don’t finish that sentence.” Rey lifted her hand and signaled her classmate to stop.“But yeah, Kylo’s picking me up after class again. We’re just going to get dinner.”

“Things seem to be going alright,” she said with a subtle smile. 

“We can talk about this later, we only have a few more hours of study time before the final, then you can badger me all you want,” Rey groaned, opening up one of Kaydel’s notebooks for her. 

“Come on, Rey.It’s just a mental break.”

“I’ve been here for 30 seconds,” Rey said, lowering her brow. 

“I’ve been here for a half hour.”

“Sorry about that, my roommate started asking questions when I started out the door.”

“Have you told them anything yet?”  
  
“No.” Rey paused. “They are hard to talk to about this.”

“Which is why you have me,” she grinned, begging for mindless banter. “So, are you guys official?”

“Official?” 

“Like, is he your boyfriend?”

Rey stopped. It hadn’t really been something she considered. They hadn’t talked about it. “I… I think so? I don’t think we can really label it given our… circumstance”

“Sure you can, lots of people have boyfriends or girlfriends before finding their soulmate.”

“You are one to talk, you found your soulmate when you were a kid.”

Kaydel shrugged. “Doesn’t mean I haven’t been around other people before.”

 

** — **

Against the brick wall of the engineering building, Kylo was waiting, scrolling through his phone as usual.Rey was utterly beat, her brain refusing to work any more than it had to after the last two hours of swirling numbers.She stumbled towards him, falling into his side, surprising him, with an overdramatic sigh.

“I hate school,” she said with a moan, “tell me it gets better in the workforce.” 

“Sorry, I'm the wrong person to ask,” he said, but then he smiled, putting his phone in his pocket and patting her head like a small animal. “I missed you.” 

She playfully swatted his hand away before nuzzling into his side in exhaustion, laying all of her weight into him and him completely unaffected.She could feel Kaydel snicker, from wherever she had run off too, or realistically, where she was spying from. 

“It’s only been a few days,” was her version of ‘I missed you too.’ “Let’s eat, I’m starving.”

“Great, I made reservations.”

Rey raised an eyebrow. “I thought we were going to Dex?”

“I don’t solely live off fast food.”

“We’ve eaten there 50% of the time since we started dating.”

He smirked to himself.“Well, tonight is a special occasion.”  
  
Rey motioned down to her outfit, a hoodie, and leggings that weren’t suited for any place other than Dex.She assumed Kylo had just come from work, because he always looks like this when he picked her up from classes, so he didn’t have to worry about his wardrobe, but Rey did. “I am not dressed for any place but Dex.”

“It’ll be fine, it’s not that nice a place.” 

Famous last words. 

“ _‘Not that nice’_ my ass,” Rey snarled as he dragged her into the nicest restaurant Rey ever had the privilege to set eyes on, let alone actually eat something from. “I can’t go in here looking like this! There are candles on the table! Real ones! Not the battery ones!”

“You’re fine,” he said, walking up to the reservation booth. 

“Says the guy in a suit,” Rey mumbled, doing her best to hide behind him as he approached the server. “Kylo, this is humiliating.”

“You look cute,” he muttered to her out of the side of the mouth before addressing the young man at the counter, “Reservation for Ren.”

The man didn’t even need to check his listing before his eyes opened wide and he stood up straighter.“Oh yes, right this way.” 

“What was that about?” Rey said in a whisper as they followed the server to the back of the restaurant, to where things were a bit quieter. 

“My boss owns this place.” 

“Oh.” _So not only was she underdressed, she was underdressed in an establishment that Kylo was a big deal at. She probably looked like a charity case._

“Someone from the wait staff will be right with you,” the man said, back straight and looking at Kylo like he was some sort of mad king who would break him in half if he said something wrong. “Is there anything I can get for you in the meantime?”

“Rey?” Kylo said as he sat into the couch-like seating that was far too comfortable to be considered an actual booth. 

The man looked towards Rey, with a cocked brow, “Oh, no thank you.”

Then the server quickly made his leave before he gave himself any more opportunities to have a misstep. 

“They seem… terrified of you,” Rey laughed, looking down at the menu and feeling nauseous as she looked at the prices.Kylo noticed this and leaned forward to grab the menu from her hands and hid it as his side. 

“You are looking at prices. Don’t worry about it.” 

“I don’t like when you do this.” 

“It’s a 'congratulations'.”  
  
“For finishing a test that I don’t even know if I passed.”

“Rey.”

“I don’t even know what I want.”

“I know what you like, I’ll order,” he said, looking down at his own menu. 

Rey sighed, feeling even more pathetic than before. She looked like an idiot. She felt poor as shit. Now she was being treated like a child. 

“I said something wrong,” Kylo said after a moment, his eyes focusing as if he was replaying the conversation in his head to try to pinpoint the error himself. Just at that second, their waitress came over and she smiled sweetly at them both.

“How can I serve you both this evening?” she said, looking at Kylo and lingering there before looking over at Rey. Rey could feel the subtle judgment from her stare, even if it was just in her head.

“Ask him,” Rey said with false niceness as she pointed to Kylo that made him frown but went unnoticed by their waitress. 

“Put in an order of crab cakes to start, we both need a minute.” He waved the waitress off without a second look then clapped his hands together and pointed them at Rey.“This was supposed to be a nice thing.”

“I know,” she said, deadpanned, crossing her arms in front of her. 

“I think you deserve to have this stuff without feeling guilty about it. I want to give that to you. I don’t know how many more ways I can say it.” He didn’t sound angry, but Rey could tell he was frustrated to some degree. The notion that he was trying his best to do nice things and it continuing to backfire on him time and time again getting to him.  
  
“You already pay for my phone, you are almost always in charge of handling food—“  
  
“It benefits me as well, it’s selfish really—“

“I can’t rely on you, Kylo,” Rey said, feeling her throat tighten “I can’t get used to this, no matter what you say, I cannot let myself get used to this because we both know one day it is going to go away.”

Kylo looked almost surprised by this admission, and Rey swore his eye’s even started to become glassy, but maybe it was just her own.“Do you want to leave?”

“Yes.” Rey choked out, doing everything in her power to stop herself from breaking down.

“Do you want me to take you home?”

She couldn’t respond so she just shook her head. 

He leaned out of the booth and stuck out his hand to receive their server's attention and she quickly shuffled over, tucking her hair behind her ears with flustered pink cheeks. 

“I’ve just realized we’ve got somewhere else to be,” Kylo started, pulling out his wallet and handing her a credit card. “Can you box up the crab cakes and just ring us up.”

“Oh, yes, of course, sir,” she said, grabbing the card before walking off. Flashing a bright, albeit nervous, smile in his direction before doing so.Something about it made Rey grimace. 

“I’m just going to run to the restroom before we head home, okay?” Kylo said as he slid out of the booth.“I’ll meet you by the door?”

“Okay.”Rey watched as he left and a moment after he turned the corner the waitress returned with the container of crab cakes and Kylo’s card with receipt. 

“I’m sorry to bother you, I didn’t want to bother him, since this is sort of embarrassing,” she said, not quite making eye contact, putting the box down on the table, “but I have to ask, are you two like… together?”

“We came to dinner together, yes?” Rey said, not quite understanding the implication until after she already replied. 

“Oh, I’m sorry, I mean is he your… _ya know_?”the woman gestured to Rey’s hand, “I didn’t see a wedding ring, so I wasn’t sure.”

Soulmates got married rather quickly, that much was true. There wasn’t much reason to delay it unless you were too young. “Oh, then… no… I guess.” 

“Okay, so you wouldn’t mind giving this to him?” she asked eagerly, placing a note on the table. “When I rang his card, I couldn’t help but notice his name and… you wouldn’t happen to know the initials he carries do you?”

“No.” Rey lied, feeling like she was about the pass out. 

“Well, just in case.” she pushed the note even closer to Rey, expecting her to take it, but she didn’t. “Thank you.” The woman turned and quickly dashed to another one of her tables before Kylo could return.

Rey eyed the note on the table. She looked towards the bathroom doors to see if Kylo had reappeared, hoping by the time she looked back the note would have disappeared.It didn’t.Rey’s gut twisted in a way that she’d never experienced before. It was filled with heartbreak, dread, and panic all at the same time. ****

The waitress still had her back turned to another table. The problem in question could go away without any further questions asked. Leaning forward to grab the note, Rey scrambled to unfold it, desperate to see it’s content. Desperate for the sense of relief from the hopeful discovery that their names were only a match one way. Desperate to go home and curl up with her boyfriend like the last twenty minutes had never happened and it could be erased from her memory.

She opened the note and the taste of bile burned her throat.

_Rachel KowalskiXXX-XXXX_

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of these days I'll get a beta. Hah! 
> 
> Thank you guys for the patience! This weeks chapter is a little bit longer so I hope that makes up for it. I'm still struggling for motivation, but your comments really helped push me through this last week.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last Chapter:  
> Rey comes across a dreaded "R-K"

The car ride back to Kylo’s was unbearable. 

The walk up to the living room from his garage was unbearable. 

He tried speaking to her, tried pleading with her to give him something, but she could give him nothing. Including the one thing she was instructed to give him.  The crumpled up paper in her pocket that was burning a hole into her thigh and _that_ pain was yet another thing that had been unbearable. 

“The crab cakes are really good if you want them,” he tried again, pushing the box towards her as she sat silently on the couch. 

The room was spinning as if they had gone to a carnival. 

Rey had known that all of this was a bad idea from the start. She’d known it would be fruitless to begin a relationship that was doomed to fail no matter how connected they’d felt.They’d only known each other such a short time.She’d probably be over him in a couple of months, she told herself. Then why couldn’t she believe that? 

Reaching for the note in her pocket, she stopped herself again, for what felt like the hundredth time in the last twenty minutes. Rey knew she had to show him eventually. She’d already betrayed his trust by hiding it from him for this long, but she didn't think she could be around him when he saw it. What if he called her right away? What if Rey didn't even have the chance to leave before he ran off to another woman?

“You don’t need to talk if you aren’t ready,” Kylo said, looking forward and not at her, “but please just let me know if I can do something. I’m sorry I messed up. I really just wanted to do that right thing.”

Rey felt her chin quiver. All she could think about was how his soulmate would probably love all this stuff he had to offer.  All this stuff he wanted to share. The waitress would probably love lavish meals and gifts and not having a single financial related care in the world.Well, maybe Rey could have learned to love that too, but it was just impossible to toy with the idea when she knew there was no point of adapting to it. 

Rey had been tossed aside before. She'd lost everything before. There would be no way she could trick herself into thinking she had it again until she met the one. The one the heavens had deemed right for her from birth, or before then. She’d have to let Kylo go eventually, and the note in her pocket was the perfect opportunity to end things before she _needed_ him.

She swallowed a scream.None of this was fair. This was supposed to fun and exciting and exhilarating but instead, she was heartsick and heartbroken and the man who’d somehow won her very stubborn affections sat cluelessly beside her.

So instead of the number of things she needed to do in the following moments, Rey kissed him. She threw herself at him. He let out a huff of surprise as she threw her arms around his neck and brought herself closer to him and after a moment he relaxed into her embrace. 

His hands landed carefully on her hips as she shuffled across the couch over his legs as if he was unsure which direction this was going to go, and to be honest, Rey didn’t know either. She just knew she wanted one more night where he was hers.One more night where they could just pretend their fates hadn’t been decided for them the day they came into this world. 

To think Rey was once grateful that she didn’t have to worry about finding the right person, and knowing they were out there. It felt constricting now. She felt powerless. 

Well, mostly powerless. Being perched upon this man's lap with his hair in her hands and tongue in his mouth gave her some sense of power.Then her hands drifted to his shirt collar and started fumbling with his buttons until they popped open, working her way down his chest. She almost grinned when she felt the grasp on her waist tighten as she explored his skin with her fingertips.

Then with an almost pained sort of grunt, he jumped back and Rey fell back into the couch as he stood.His face was red and his hair was tousled, looking utterly both confused and debauched. 

They starred at each other in stunned silence for a minute before Kylo finally broke. “I’m getting mixed signals here.” 

“I—,” Rey started, and the damn note in her pocket started screaming again as she came crashing back down to earth, “I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me.”

Silence again. 

“Are… did you change your mind?” he said, shifting uncomfortably as he broached the topic they hadn’t addressed in some time.

“I…” A part of her wanted to say yes. But the sensible part of herself who knew about the damn piece of paper in her pocket spoke louder, “I… I don’t think so.”  
  
“That’s fine,” he said genuinely, then he added awkwardly, “I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going?” Rey called after him as he sharply turned around and started walking back toward the bedrooms. 

“To shower or something, I don’t know. Give me ten minutes.” He sounded urgent, but not nessecarilly at her expense as the sound of his door opening and closing echoed into the living room. 

“Wha- oh.” Rey felt the blush on her face.She sat statuesque for a minute, staring straight ahead at the blank TV.The sound of silence making her skin crawl.

She had to tell him the truth. She knew that. 

She tried to play pretend for the last couple of months. She tried to pretend that she didn’t know the initials on the back of his neck. She tried to pretend hers were something different.She tried to pretend they didn’t exist at all.But the proof that they did and that they meant something was in her pocket and she couldn’t betray him like that. She cared for him. Dangerously so. Keeping this from him was a betrayal she couldn’t commit even if it meant the sacrifice of her own happiness. 

Rey stood and ran back towards Kylo’s room, not even bothering knocking before entering.The shower was already running and Rey regained some awareness when she walked over to the bathroom door and tapped lightly.

“…Hello?” Kylo said after a second, mumbled.

“Hey, it’s me.” Rey squeaked, leaning against the door and grabbing the crumpled note from her pocket.

“I kinda figured,” he responded. Neither of them spoke.“Um… can this wait a second?” 

“Not really,” she said, feeling the tears prick behind her eyes, as she opened the paper and re-read the name, “I messed up, Kylo, I’m really really sorry.” 

“Rey, I can’t really hear you over the shower, just open the door, you won't’ see anything unsavory I promise.” He laughed nervously. 

She wondered if he had heard anything she said as she twisted the doorknob and took a step in, the shower doors were frosted enough that she could barely even see a silhouette. With a deep breathe she the looked down at the note again before folding it in half.

“Kylo, I fucked up,” she said, looking straight at her feet.While he was right, she couldn’t see anything through the glass, just knowing what was there made her feel flushed. 

“…did you break something?” He said, calculating, trying to figure what on earth had happened. 

“No, nothing like that!” 

After that she was at a loss for words, nearly forgetting why she had come in here in the first place. Why it was so urgent to do this now. 

“I’m really at a loss here, you’ve been acting really strange all night, and I thought once we got home things would cool down but… clearly, I was wrong.”

Rey knew she was acting erratic, but something about being confronted about it made her angry.Her fist clenched around the note and she took a step forward.Kylo slid open the shower door just enough that his face popped out and suddenly that anger melted. It was easier to do this when she couldn’t see his face.Especially his wet face framed by drenched black curly locks that made him look a bit silly, but in an endearing way she didn’t want to lose. 

“I’m sorry,” Rey found herself repeating, as her shaking hand holding the note raised to his level. “I… the waitress at the restaurant came by when you left the table, she said she saw your name in your credit card… and uh..”

He didn’t reach for the note, just stared at it apprehensively, his brow lowered. 

“Did you tell her we were together?” he asked, and Rey pouted at the question.

“She asked if we were soulmates, and I gave her an honest answer,” she said, her hand still quivering, begging for him just to take the damn thing from her. 

“…did you look at it?” He asked, he demeanor more casual than Rey had imagined it would be.

“I’m sorry, I did.” 

“And you think it’s still worth showing it to me?”

“…Yes.” Rey wasn’t sure she meant that though. 

Without missing another beat Kylo grabbed the note and held it directly under the water. The paper melted and the ink ran at his fingertips as he shifted so Rey could see his hands without seeing much else. 

“Whoops.” 

“KYLO, WHAT THE HELL?” Rey shouted, reaching at his fingers to see what she could salvage, which was assuredly nothing. 

He shrugged with a deadpan expression and closed the shower door then which the water stopped running.“I don’t give a fuck, Rey, I don’t even remember her besides that she must have taken a crab cake order.”

“I was distracting you, maybe if you went and talked to-“

“You really think that if I was in the same room as my potential soulmate I would be too distracted by another woman I wouldn’t notice her? We’re done talking about this.”

“Kylo… I…”

“Hand me a towel real quick,” and Rey looked around the room to see one hanging near the door and Kylo slid open the door to stick out his hand and Rey handed it to him.  After a moment the door slid open more and Rey spun quickly to look away. Red-faced from both embarrassment and tears.

“Sweetheart,” he said, softly, “are you alright?”

“Not really. I’m not sure I can go through this again. I hate this.”

“…”

“This is why I can’t tell you the initials I carry. I can’t. I hate knowing yours.At first, it was a personal thing, but now I can’t burden you with that knowledge. Knowing yours may just drive me mad,” Rey said with a sniff, still facing the wall as Kylo tied the towel around his waist. “Knowing them is just a reminder that this is going to end, at least you can pretend a little bit, right?”

“I guess,” he low voice chimed in from behind.His warm, still damp body, wrapping around her. “But I don’t care about that, not anymore, the whole soulmate thing is about finding the person who makes you happiest, who completes you in ways only one other person can.”

“That’s why you should have seen if it was her…”

  
“It wasn’t. Trust me,” he said, pressing his lips into his shoulder, and Rey maybe felt the tiniest bit of relief. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks guys for the wait! For some reason, this chapter really wouldn't come to me easily.  
> But thank you ALL so much for the support on that last chapter, I'm sorry I caused y'all some stress, but trust me, benny boy knows what's up. 
> 
> ... and maybe the angst train is slowin' down soon. Or spreading up? Or reaching its final destination.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for such a short chapter! I just finished my school year so now I have more time to dedicate to writing, so I just wanted to post a short between chapter to restart back into it!

Kylo was feeling stressed, to say the least.Hunched over his work desk, he stared at his work phone as if a creature from the depths of hell was about to crawl out of it.His mother had been graciously absent the last two months, which Kylo had been more than thankful for, perhaps she assumed this wasn’t his correct number and it was a fruitless trail.But even Kylo knew his mother well enough to know that wasn’t true. She was waiting him out.  Like a polar bear and a seal waiting for air. She put the seeds in his head and now she was waiting for them to take root. Waiting for them to eat him alive.

There was a reason he had decidedly and successfully not talked to her in years.

The worst part of it all was that he still respected her. She knew how to get things done. If she wasn't his mother perhaps things would have been different. 

He shook his head quickly, rattling his brain to the point it hurt before settling down again. A voicemail from his mother would _not_ unravel him like this. 

So he pressed play again.Pressed play on that message that was waiting for him when he walked into his office this morning. 

“Ben? It’s mom,” the message started, “well, you know that. I know you are listening to this.I won’t beg for you to talk to me, but I want you to know we’re thinking of you. _All of us_.” 

The way she said ‘ _all of us’_ made him shiver. 

“Do you get any time off for the holidays?” She asked, pausing as if he would answer, “I think I know the answer, so I won’t pretend like I’m optimistic, but we’d love to see you when Hannukah starts, or when it ends, whenever works best for you.I’ll make latkas or whatever you’d like…” she trailed off again. “Or even if it’s just me. We can set that up. If that would make it easier. Ben, we aren’t getting any younger, and I refuse to leave this planet not making this right again.Please call me when you are ready. The past is behind us. We can move on together.”

The message ended. 

Kylo had sworn the first time he heard the voicemail that it was a fever dream and he hoped with every fiber of his being that it would be something totally different when he replayed it. 'Hope' was not enough in this case. Perhaps not all of his mother's wisdom was true.

“Dammit.” 

He slammed his fist on his desk before reaching for his cell. He pulled up the Calendar and, as his mother suggested, Hannukah would start soon, in two days. While he hadn’t ‘celebrated’ the holiday in the religious sense since he stopped his family communications, he did still, almost mechanically, light the small boxy metal menorah he had. His brow furrowed thinking of the ritual. Reaching into his pocket he pulled out his cellphone, which his mother had thankfully not uncovered the number for, and pulled up his recent texts. 

He texted:  
  
_'What’s your schedule like this week?'_

Staring intently at his phone, willing a response, it vibrated nearly instantly.A bit of his residual anxiety washed away. 

‘ _Morning shifts and Maz’s all week now that school’s on break. I’m done by 5 though.’_

_‘Day after tomorrow.Do you want to come over? I think I want to cook.’_ he typed back.

_‘Pick me up at the Diner?’_

_“Done.’_

He shoved the phone back into his pocket and leaned back into his chair. He both loved and hated how even the slightest reassurance of Rey's affection, which in this case was the simple act of accepting a dinner invitation, really took the edge off, he almost felt better, or so he thought until there was a knock on his door.

“Come in,” he groaned, the last of his common sense preventing him from saying his intended greeting of ‘Fuck off’. 

“Mr. Ren, sir,” another of Snoke's assistants or receptionists or something of the sort peeked in.He was a thin dark-haired boy who looked like he was about to cry even during the most casual of conversations. Kylo was completely unsure how he had lasted even a month of working under Snoke, but the boy probably feared for his life if he left. _A rational fear._

“What is it, Mitaka?” Kylo placed his hands on his desk, an attempt to seem more menacing to hopefully rush this conversation.

“Snoke wants to talk to you.”

“What for? There hasn't been an incident, our numbers have been steadily rebalancing and growing for weeks.” He knew Snoke wasn’t one to bring in his staff for praise when things were going well. 

“He said it was a personal matter.” Mitaka looked down at the floor like that fact was the hardest thing he’d ever had to say. 

With good reason.

Kylo’s mother’s voice rang in his head again. _All of us. All of us._ Leia had said, loud and clear, the words ‘All of us.’Her voice uneasy when she spoke it.She knew she was breaking the news to Kylo in those few words.His mother’s brother, his own uncle, Luke Skywalker, was finally out of prison.Which to Snoke, meant that he and Kylo were teetering on the edge of being royally fucked. 

“I’ll be right up,” Kylo muttered, letting his head fall into his hands.This was not going to end well. 

Kylo didn’t even bother waiting for Snoke’s permission before walking into his office. Snoke and Kylo hadn’t had much of a personal relationship, but this was one situation that affected both of them equally. 

“I suppose you’ve heard the news,” the man said, surprisingly calm, his fingers steepled in front of his face from behind his desk. 

“I figured it out.”

“Well,” Snoke started, rotating slightly in his chair to stare off into a void only he could see, “with your uncle out of prison, you see how this puts me in a difficult situation…”

“If he hasn’t spoken up now, he won’t-“  
  
“Are you so sure?” Snoke turned back towards Kylo, the death in his glare intensifying. “Perhaps he was released early because he gave them more information. Perhaps the authorities are on their way right as we speak.”Kylo knew Snoke wasn’t speaking from a place of genuine concern, but rather as a method to see if Kylo had been in contact with his family.

“He probably was released on good behavior,” Kylo said, a bit childishly in reaction to being talked down too. 

“You best hope that is the case, young Solo.”

_Solo.The name when coming from Snoke’s mouth felt even more wrong given how he had made him change his name to begin with._

“He did not say anything,” Kylo said, knowing that his not even his mother would have been so cruel to have invited him over for latkes when the feds were on their way to arrest him. 

“I know how to keep people silent, Solo.I’m not so partial to you to not use those tactics.”

“I know.” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The very minor actual plot had to come in eventually I guess.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY. It's ALMOST TIME. Things are sliding into place.

After pocketing a couple of bucks her last customer had left as a tip, Rey’s heart skipped at the sound of the bell at the entryway. It had skipped for the last hour and a half.She felt her eyes wrinkle and her smile widen when Kylo walked in the door, wiping his shoes on the welcome mat after sludging through the freshly fallen snow, the first of the season.He waved politely with a subtle grin of his own, not wanting to distract her, or get her in any trouble with Maz, during the last few minutes of her shift and sat down at the counter. 

“Are you going to be ordering anything or are you just wasting space for a paying customer?” Maz said the minute he sat down, popping her head out from beneath the bar. 

“Pleasure as always, Maz,” Kylo replied as Rey carried dishes back to the kitchen, still listening to the spat between the two, making sure the Maz wasn’t actually being serious. _She was never sure._

“Are you sure you don’t want anything before you go?” Maz asked as Rey entered back into the main diner, zipping up her jacket to speed their exit along. 

“I’m actually planning on cooking tonight, so we’ll be alright,”Kylo said, standing as Rey came to his side. 

“You know, I could always use another cook.” Maz grinned, pointing the pencil she took orders with at him almost accusingly. “If you ever find yourself looking for work, I can’t keep making the food by myself forever. Rey is only so much help.”

“Goodnight, Maz,” Rey quickly interrupted before Kylo could answer. She grabbed him by the arm and whisked him out the door. A nearly identical routine every time he came and picked her up at work. Rey secretly loved it. 

The snowfall was light, but still enough that footsteps left a small crunch. Kylo dusted off his shoulders with the hand Rey wasn’t dragging as if even the smallest snowfall would scald him. 

“Oh come on, you don’t like snow?” Rey said, spinning around to stop him.

“Does anyone _like_ snow?” he said honestly in return. “It’s cold and wet and-“

“I figured you would like winter, it’s the gloomiest time of year,” Rey smirked and Kylo frowned. 

“I…” Kylo stopped to think for a minute, twisted his mouth, and let whatever thought he had faded away, “I’m not a particular fan of any season.”

“You’re just miserable always?” Rey scoffed, knowing that wasn’t what he meant.

“No, I just don’t have a favorite. Winter is particularly low on the list though” He seemed pensive about this. “Is winter your favorite?” he asked as if he’d be offended if she said yes. 

“You’ll be happy to know it isn’t, Ren.” She let go of his hand and walked a step closer to him. “It’s fall. The season between everything. Between the hottest hot and the coldest cold… and the colors are wonderful.”

“The same could be said about spring.”

Rey opened her mouth to protest as she leaned into him but he had a point. “Then spring can be your favorite season, just to be fair.”

She really wanted to kiss him then, and given the look in his eye, he probably felt the same way.They had the whole evening together, which would probably turn into the morning, so it could wait until they were inside a warm home.Rey could appreciate the beauty of snowfall, but even she loved a well-heated place of living, which her house was certainly not. 

When they reached Kylo’s condo, Rey opened her phone to think of something to tell her roommates explaining why she wasn’t coming home.Now that she was on semester break, it was getting harder and harder to use the excuse “overnight study session”. 

“I’ve been telling them I’ve been spending the nights at Maz’s,” Rey said when she told Kylo her dilemma. “That Maz was getting up there in years and needed some help sometimes at home.”

“She’d kill you if she knew you were saying that,” Kylo said, looking uneasy.

“I know but I don’t know what else to tell them.”

He didn’t respond right away as he walked into the kitchen and began taking pans out from one of his cupboards. “The truth is always an option,” he muttered.

Rey knew that it probably didn’t feel great to be kept a secret, especially from her closest friends, but she didn’t think it actually bothered him more than making a snide comment every now and then.“I… I’m sorry,” Rey said, not sure if she meant it as an apology to hurting his feelings or that she still wasn’t ready to tell them. 

“It’s okay, just don’t come crying to me when Maz has your head for thinking she’s senile.” He flashed a little smile but Rey still felt guilty. 

“Can I help you prepare anything?” Rey asked, hoping the change of subject would change the tone of the conversation. 

“Start peeling these potatoes,” he leaned down and pulled up a small bag of brown potatoes on the counter. “As many as you can.”

“What are we making?” Rey said, picking up a potato as Kylo slid over a peeler as well. 

“It’s officially Hanukkah, so, we’re making latkes.”He almost looked a little bitter as he said this, like the ghosts of traditions past were forcing him to do this. 

“Wait, you’re Jewish?” Rey said as the correlation dawned on her. “You never told me that.”  
  
“My mom’s Jewish, so I guess that makes me Jewish,” he said, now fully focused on his own potato and peeler.Rey watched him for a minute.She supposed neither of them had really discussed their families at all, not that Rey had much to discuss.Rey didn’t really have any family history or stories to tell, and perhaps that's why she didn’t find it odd that he hadn’t really brought up his parents either.Given her life, she should have had the common sense not to ask about it further, but he had piqued her curiosity. 

“So is this something you and your mom did?” She panicked briefly at the implication of her using past tense, but it went unnoticed.

“When I was younger, yeah.”He didn’t seem angry about the question but he did seem like he had something he wanted to add.“My dad’s not Jewish, so we still did the whole Christmas thing, but my mom made sure we still did all this stuff together.”

“That sounds nice,” Rey said, realizing she’d totally neglected her potato peeling as Kylo had just begun his second. 

He thought about his answer before he responded. “It was, for a while.”

Rey really wanted to ask more, but her own ghosts stopped her. 

Once the potatoes were peeled, Kylo brought out the food processor which was one of the most majestic machines Rey had ever seen. They tossed each potato in and in a second they were chopped into fine slices and Rey admitted that this was the most fun she’d ever had while cooking. 

Later, as Kylo put each finely pressed pancake into the oil, one after another, Rey watched him sat atop the countertop, with a pretty strong hunch she’d have potato peeling stuck on her backside once she stood up.She kicked her feet as the sizzle of the oil filled the room as Kylo placed each new pancake into the pan. 

“Wanna try one?” he said, handing her a plate of the first finished products. 

“Obviously.” Rey took the plate and then a huge bite out. She figured they wouldn’t be bad, given the simple ingredients, but she didn’t expect them to be delicious. “These are fantastic!”

“My mom had a special recipe. I think she got it from her mom. My mom was adopted, but her biological mother left her some keepsakes.” 

Rey froze. He'd provided the perfect in for her to open up about her own past. She urged herself to speak the words but, as always, they wouldn’t come.Kylo turned off the stovetop and spun around and placed himself between her legs, and now the words wouldn’t come for a different reason as he cupped her jaw and softly brought his lips to hers. 

“I’m sorry, I had just realized I hadn’t kissed you properly this evening,” he said, backing away just an inch. 

“It’s… okay,” Rey said, mouth dry. 

“You look beautiful.” He mumbled against her mouth as he leaned in again.Rey knew, of course, this was a lie. She was still in her work clothes which probably reeked of grease and burgers and the rest of her was far from put together. 

“Don’t lie,” she scolded, playfully, wrapping her legs around his waist ever so slightly.

“I’m not. You’re perfect.” And he decidedly shut her up with his tongue. 

Rey, with genuine gusto, loved kissing, and usually, it was a personally satiable activity, but as time went on it was becoming less and less satisfying. She pulled at the hairs by the base of his neck to try to pull him closer, even if it was impossible, and was met with a groan that made her stomach flip. Putting his hands around her back, Kylo carefully began to lean her back onto the countertop but pulled back when she unknowingly resisted. 

“Are you okay?” he asked, a bit breathless. 

“Isn’t this like sacrilegious?” Rey blurted out pointing to the plated latkes. 

“Making out in front of potato pancakes? No.”

“I mean that we’re supposed to be honoring your traditions and I have a feeling _this_ isn’t part of that.”

“I’m really not that attached to my traditions,” he said as Rey sat up straight again. “I haven’t even seen my parents or any of my family for that matter in years.”

With that, something inside Rey clicked, and now Rey began to slightly understand why he hadn’t brought up his family prior to tonight.But something else sat uneasily with her that he still had an opportunity for a family and failed to do everything in his power to keep them in his life.She would have. 

“Oh.” 

“A lot of fighting. A lot.”

Then Rey wondered if they had something in common.

“Were your parents not… ya know.” She gestured to the bandage still on her neck. “soulmates.”

Saying the word around him always sounded so wrong. As if it were an insult.  
  
“They are actually,” Kylo said taking a step back, then grabbing a latke off the plate and shoving the entire thing in his mouth, “it surprises most people given how they choose to communicate, but they really were made for each other. They liked to play the game of ‘Who could leave the longest before the other begged them to come back.’It was not that fun for me as a kid.”

“Oh,” Rey turned away and gazed at the kitchen floor, “I thought soulmates weren’t supposed to do that stuff.”

“You would think. I was young and didn’t understand it. I still don’t.” he trailed off and pulled out his phone as if it would distract from this conversation. “Funnily enough, my parents had come to the conclusion they weren’t soulmates given that their initials didn’t match when they first met. They were just another casual hookup for each other.”

“How is that possible?”  
  
“As I said, my mom was adopted. Her maiden name was Organa, but her birth name was Skywalker. When my mom found out her birth name she and my father ended up being a match. They told me that story a lot, like the story of their love would make up for how awful they were treating each other.But maybe I’m the only one it made upset, and they just didn’t care. I guess at the end of the day your parents are just people.”

Rey jumped off of the counter and followed to where Kylo had begun to wander off too. She could tell him now. She could tell her truth. But what would that point be? It’s not like his name would magically change even if it was a slight possibility that hers could, and as far as she knew, Johnson was her last name. She had no reason to believe it was anything else. 

“I really like you,” Rey said instead, pulling him close to her, “like a lot. Like it scares me.”

“You know,” Kylo said, turning red, “maybe this whole soulmate thing is bullshit after all. Maybe we can hop on a plane and fly to a deserted island and just-“

He stopped himself before realizing he may not have been totally kidding. 

“You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” he said instead, “I hate that one day I’ll have to lose you.”  
  
Rey could only nod as she felt her eyes sting. “That’s not tonight.” She leaned her ear to his chest where she could hear his heartbeat quicken. “Tonight you have me.All of me.” Then she pressed her nose into his shirt and let out a small laugh.

“What?” he said, holding her hips.

“You smell like deep-fried potatoes,” she said.

“As do you.”

“That’s not fair, I had worked at the diner before this, it’s a double for me.” She sniffed her own shirt and recoiled, but against his body, she felt bold, heat crawling up her neck as she played with one of his shirt buttons, "we should probably bathe before bed."

"You can use the shower first if you want, I can clean up the kitchen," he said, oblivious to her suggestion. Rey pouted before grabbing his hand and dragging him back towards the bedrooms. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry. I needed the perspective change for the next chapter.  
> But I promise... WE'RE GETTING THERE.   
> Only did one edit run, apologies! I'll do another later!


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... Well, advancements were made.  
> Some physicality ensures, but it's really awkward and uncomfortable for everyone so... does it really count as romance? Only read past the pace marker for the important bit if you aren't about that life!

Needless to say, Kylo didn’t have a problem with how Rey worked the buttons on his shirt as soon as she pulled him into the bathroom. He had a lot of questions, the first being on how far she wanted this to go, but he couldn’t really find the air to say it as she quickly turned to start the tub before kissing him again. 

“Rey,” he said breathily when she parted from his lips, “you have to let me know what you want here.”

A part of Kylo hated himself for even asking.

With her hands still fisted onto his shirt, she pushed back, looking up at him with faraway eyes, driven with something not entirely herself. “Can’t we just see where things go?”

She continued plucking at his buttons, slower now, and he let her despite his misgivings.As his shirt opened she kissed the bare skin on his chest and the moment her lips touched him a noise not quite human escaped and he had to push her back again. 

“Rey, I’d love to just see where things go,” he started, holding her arms to keep her at a distance so his own sanity wouldn’t be breached, “but you set up some pretty firm boundaries when we started and I can’t have you regret this. I’m pretty sure we both know what will happen if we just see where things go.So I need you to acknowledge that you actively want this and you won’t wake up tomorrow regretting it.”

“I—“ she swallowed. Kylo could feel her pulse through her wrists, his own vision blurred from lust. “I want to be in control of this.”

“Of what?”

“Of all of this! Of when this happens or doesn't happen. Of how I feel towards you!” she confessed, her own humiliation seeping through, “It’s unfair. When I’m not with you sometimes I feel like I can control it… then I see you and it’s all just gone. Out the window like an escaped caged bird.”

“We don’t need to do anything tonight. You can think about it some more and—“

“Stay with me,” she said and Kylo loosened his hold so she could step back closer to him. The sound of running water behind him becoming increasingly louder.

“I’m not going anywhere, I told you, for as long as you want me, I’m not going anywhere.”

“I mean, right now,” she said, “we can both sit in the water together without having sex. I think we can both manage that.”

That was extremely questionable on his part at this point but he wasn’t about to deny himself this. “Okay.”

They stood looking at each other in silence. Both unsure of how to exactly pursue this venture further.Kylo’s shirt was already mostly undone so he began to shrug it off completely and Rey’s averted her eyes once more. 

“You know, you’re going to have to look at me eventually,” Kylo laughed and that somewhat broke the tension as Rey’s cheeks reddened. 

“mmhmm,” she hummed in agreement, seeming to forget that the concept of bathing together, while simple enough, meant being undressed together.

“We don’t have to do this,”Kylo reminded her, getting ready to put his shirt back on.She reached out a hand to stop him before he could though and swatted the shirt back onto the floor.

Then without any sort of fanfare or sensuality, in which Kylo assumed they were going for, she crossed her arms around herself and whipped her t-shirt over her head, tossing it to the floor in defiance. It seemed to be more a statement to the universe than him, but he was the one who got to appreciate the view.She was still partially covered, in a black bra with a slight rip in the side. Half of him wanted to say he’d take her shopping for replacements but the other half of his mind knew to shut the hell up. Then she returned to him, pressing herself against him, abdomen against abdomen, and placed her lips against his jawline. 

She began to guide his hands up her back as he somewhat came back into his own body. The soft feel of her skin binding him to her in a way he was unaware possible. Her softness melting into him that would intoxicate his bloodstream for years to come. But to even have a taste of it, it was either torture of the highest of gifts.Either way, tonight he’d be willing to accept it just to have her want to be closer to him. 

“We should… probably get in… before the tub overflows,” Rey said as her hands fell to his belt. 

There was a safety drain to prevent that, Kylo acknowledged to himself, but he wasn’t about to criticize her attempt to speed things along. 

“Is this alright?” he asked upon her lips as his fingers circled around to the clasp at her back.He was ready to stop asking questions but every part of her felt so fragile at that moment that he feared even this would hurt her.

“It’s what I was trying to get you to do, dummy,” she laughed in response, and in one quick twist of his wrist, the fabric slipped away onto the floor. He didn’t even think to look before holding her flush against him again, only wanting to feel the sensation of their bodies together rather than the visual stimulation which he was sure to enjoy later. The silken skin of her breast landed just under his pectorals and Rey slipped his belt through the loops like a whip and with a loud clang thew it aside like it was the very God keeping them apart to begin with. 

Then Rey turned around, working at kicking off her own pants as Kylo undid the fly on his, now dangerously self-conscious about what lay underneath.Surely, Rey had to have known that this would be an extremely arousing situation and that certain reactions couldn’t be helped nessecarilly, but at the same time, he didn’t want that _situation_ to feel like any sort of pressure. 

While she was turned he speedily took the opportunity to throw off his clothes without any finesse and lowered himself into the tub and slammed on the jacuzzi setting which hadn’t been used since he bought the place. The bubbles clouded the water and the sound of splashing caught Rey's attention and she turned around now just in underwear with a look of bemusement. 

Kylo choked on his own spit at the first proper sight of her bare body. He would have pinched himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming but on the off chance it was a dream he sure as hell didn’t want to wake up. 

“Close your eyes,” Rey said after a minute, crossing her arms in front of herself as if suddenly self-conscious. “If you got to get into the water without showing anything, then I get that same courtesy.” 

Kylo’s head lolled back with a dramatic sigh that thankfully made Rey laugh and he did as he was told.He closed his eyes and tossed his arm over his face to assure no “peeking” was taking place.Once the splash of water around him subsided and he felt her toes touch against his he opened his eyes to the sight of Rey curled up, with her knees above the water, on the opposite side of the tub. 

“There… isn’t a lot of room,” she said, a bit defeated.He was beginning to be grateful that they had decided that sex was off the table tonight because it certainly would have been an absolute nightmare like this.He never really used the bath. Feeling like human soup wasn’t his kind of thing, so he didn’t really realize how much space he took up until now.She lifted her hand from to water and pointed at him.“Can I sit closer?”

His immediate response was to nod yes as he began to shift to let her slide between his legs to make things a little more compact, the added bonus of further skin to skin contact didn’t hurt either. But he froze as she started to move towards him. 

“Okay, just to be transparent,” he said, feeling the tips of his ears go hot, “you are going to…um…  _notice_ something if you sit over here.”

She turned her head to the side like a dog who didn’t understand a command and Kylo gestured vaguely to the bubbling water above his center. Rey giggled even though she was still red.

“Are you talking about your dick?”

“I don’t want it to freak you out or anything, or think it means something needs to happen or whatever.”

“I may not have had sex before, but I know basic human anatomy. I know where _that_ is.I was aware when I asked you.”

“Just come over here,” he said, resigned and slightly embarrassed. He just really didn’t want to mess this up. He knew the laughter wasn’t directed at him, rather about just how unbelievably not sexy this whole endeavor was turning out, but still, he felt nervous.Rey twisted and turned her back towards him and gently wedged herself between his thighs and against his back and finally, everything felt right again.He was pressed hard against her back in all respects, but Rey, thankfully, didn’t comment about it or even seem phased by it. 

Rey sank down into the tub, so the tips of her hair were floating and just her head was above water. “This is better,” she said, closing her eyes and letting her head fall against his chest. 

Kissing the top of her head, Kylo wrapped his hands around her stomach to keep her from sliding down further.The wet skin under his fingertips was almost enough to send him over the edge and he longed to be greedy with his touches, and he had a feeling Rey was daring him to do so given the way she moved her legs under the water, but she had to say the words.   
  
She had to say it.

While beginning to leave light kisses against her neck, he pulled her hair aside and froze.The corner of the bandage Rey kept on her neck had begun to loosen in the water revealing a small undetermined mark that Rey had been clear he was not to see.He quickly patted the bandage down and Rey jumped up, all serenity replaced with panic.

“It was coming off, it’s fine now,” Kylo assured, willing her to curve into him again. 

“Did you…see anything?” she asked.Her pulse strong against his skin. Hand firm against the back of her neck keeping everything in place. 

“No. I promise,” he breathed. 

She relaxed a little into his arms. They both closed their eyes until they were both too warm to stay in any longer.

** — **

As Rey lay in his bed, fast asleep for hours, Kylo starred at the back of her neck with an urge that somehow surpassed all his others for the evening.The flap on the bandage was still loose, the water removing the adhesive from that half. If Rey turned her said even slightly, the bandage would slip open. If he just waited long enough...

He could just look. She wouldn’t have to know.It wouldn’t change how he felt about her but he just hated not knowing this about her.He wanted to know her fully. He didn’t want to be her secret and he didn’t want her to keep secrets from him.She wouldn’t even notice if he looked. 

He reached forward, and with barely a touch, the bandage fell from her skin. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aw, Ben you gonna get in trouble. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading. It's happening.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry.

 

Rey stretched as the morning light peered into Kylo’s bedroom window.She loved the mornings during semester break where she could wake up to only the light and not any alarms that broke her out of deep sleep.Blinking with bleary eyes, she wiggled to try to find Kylo’s body in the bed as he wasn’t as close to her as he usually was when they slept.Dragging her foot along the sheets, she tried to feel for him but he wasn’t there.With a groan, Rey raised from her lying position and looked over to Kylo’s side to see that he was noticeably, not there.She frowned. He usually at least said goodbye if he had to leave for work early, but maybe he hadn’t left yet and was only in the kitchen or living room. 

Swinging her legs over the bed, she padded out of the bedroom in her designated sleeping clothes, which had just been one of Kylo’s old workout shirts and made her way to the kitchen. 

“Kylo?” she called out, but to no reply.When she reached the kitchen, there was a pen and paper on the cleaned counter.He’s probably woken up early the clean the kitchen mess.But he’d also left a note, left in rushed almost jittery handwriting:

 

_ Rey, _

_ Had unexpected meeting this morning, didn’t want to wake you— sorry. Stay as long as you need. _

 

She pouted, holding the note in her hand. He usually said goodbye but she supposed he couldn’t be too upset for not wanting to wake her up.Rey walked over the fridge to grab something before she headed home and found the remainder of the previous night's latkes with a post-it on top. 

 

_They’re good in the morning too. Almost like hash browns._

 

That made her smile. 

As she gnawed on the shredded potatoes, she a wandered aimlessly around Kylo’s living room.She wasn’t often in here alone and didn’t really take the time to notice how peculiar Kylo’s decorating was; if she could even call it decorating. It was art, not decor. It was a collection, not furnishings.He hadn’t talked about it much, which was strange given how it clearly was an important hobby to him, but maybe he didn’t have a reason he liked it. He just did.Rey understood that. 

She grabbed her phone which she’d left on the countertop and unlocked it hoping to find something from Kylo. Nothing. Which made her panic. He’d never left without saying goodbye before, and while a note sufficed, after last night she would have really liked for him to not change their routine. She didn’t feel guilty about last night, as nothing that lewd happened, it was just a new sort of intimacy. And She enjoyed it. She knew that her constant unsureness about certain advancements must have been frustrating to him on some level, but he didn’t seem to mind what happened last night.But a voice inside her head told her that he was upset before she squashed it. 

She couldn’t let herself think like that.

She knew it wasn’t true. 

Then suddenly she was afraid she didn’t know him at all and she knew she needed someone to talk too. Someone that wasn’t Kaydel who really didn’t understand Rey’s complicated feelings on the matter who’s only offered advice was ‘just have sex with him, dear god, it’s fun I swear.’ 

Then Rey knew she was ready for something. She’d put a wall up between her and her friends for months now and while she may not have been sure if she was ready for Kadyel’s advice, she knew she needed those walls to come down. 

She called Poe to pick her up when he had just finished his patrol and was looking forward to a days rest.When she hopped into his car, he looked up at the condominium suspiciously but was too tired to make a connection right away. 

“Wait,” he said, keeping the car in park, “haven’t I picked you up here before? This isn’t Maz’s?”

Rey considered lying. But she supposed starting to share this with Poe might be the easiest way to handle things. After all, _he_ wasn’t dating Finn and Rose and not telling her. At least, she assumed not. 

“Um, yeah,” Rey said, and even though it wasn’t a detail-filled response, it was the truth. 

Poe still didn’t start driving. He just starred at Kylo’s home trying to jar his memory. “Holy shit. This was where I picked you up when you had that date a few months back!”

Poe’s jaw dropped and he turned his head so quickly to face Rey she'd sworn he’d hurt himself doing it. 

“Yup.” _Still the truth._

“Okay, Rey, you need to tell me more than that if you want me to drive you home.”

And so she told him. Everything. About the night her and Kylo met when she’d tried to steal his wallet in a moment of desperation.About the first date she’d had with him that, until this moment, she swore was her only real date with him. About her struggling with the concepts of intimacy until Poe got uncomfortable. And lastly about Finn and Rose, who had been dating behind their backs for just as long if not longer.

“Um, about that-“ Poe coughed, trying to take it all in. 

“You knew!?” Rey shouted, 

“They aren’t really telling anyone, Rey.I just became suspicious and asked them about it.”

“So you knew they were hiding it from me?”

“Rey, it looks like you don’t have a whole lot of room to talk,” he gestured back to Kylo’s building. “You should understand the sort of stigma that happens when you date someone who isn’t your soulmate.”

She had. 

“All the sad or condescending looks from people who think you are just wasting your time, and Rey you were such a soulmate purist for such a long time.”

“ _Were_?” Rey said, a bit insulted, then she went quiet when she realized she’d forgotten for a second that Kylo wasn’t her soulmate. _How had she forgotten even for just the briefest moment?_ Her throat felt tight and Poe luckily had sensed not to press any further on it. 

“Come on, Let’s go home, we can all talk about it together, okay? No more secrets.”

“No more secrets.”  
  
When they arrived back at the house, Finn and Rose were already there.Rose was sketching on the couch and Finn was reading by her feet.Rey swallowed.She was so ready for all of this to be over, but for that to happen, it had to begin. 

“I think we need to talk,” Rey said and Finn and Rose met her gaze we a concerned expression, then a relieved one. 

They wanted this all to be over too. 

It turns out, Finn and Rose had never even put a label on their relationship formally, though they weren’t insulted when Rey used the term “boyfriend” or “girlfriend”. It had started not too long before Rey had met Kylo after a night out gone wrong, and the hysterics it ensued lead to them realizing that they enjoyed each others company in a romantic variety.Rey didn’t need many details after that.Rey knew it would be hypocritical to not understand why they hadn’t just told her, and why they had kept it from her for so long, but something about the affirmation still stung. 

“It’s just hard, loving someone you know is destined for someone else,” Rose said, and Poe shot over a glance at Rey in an attempt to get her into the queue for discussion. “It’s hard to just announce, 'Hey look, I’m getting into something that’s just gonna end!'"

“…”

“Rey gets it,” Poe said and she froze and the room went quiet. 

“We… kinda figured.” Finn said, looking up at the ceiling as if it were the person talking to him. Rose bit her lip. 

“What?” 

“I mean, how many late-night study sessions are we supposed to believe?” he continued.   
  
“I need to apply for scholarships again! It’s reasonable!”

“I thought we were done lying.”

Rey knew that only someone completely naive wouldn’t have been suspicious, but still. 

“So… who is it?” Rose said.

“It’s the guy she went on that date with a few months ago!” Poe chimed in. Rey sighed, Poe wasn’t involved in any of this. So this was like a movie ending he could spoil for people and he enjoyed it. 

That seemed to actually surprise the both of them. 

“Wait really? The broody one who you robbed?” Finn said. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, all love stories begin like that,” he said that with dripping sarcasm. 

“So, it’s going well?” Rose said, her surprise quickly melting into joy. Rey supposed Rose was eager to not feel as guilty about keeping her own relationship secret if Rey had too.

Rey wanted to respond with: “I like him so much it hurts sometimes.” or “On the outside it seems like we’re so different but we’ve connected in a way that I didn’t know was possible for people who weren’t soulmates.” or “The thought that one day he’ll meet the real love of his life keeps me awake at night and it takes all I can muster to keep from sobbing when we share a bed.”

But instead, Rey just smiled. “Yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the chapter none of you were looking for after that last cliffhanger.  
> But... uh. BEN HAS PLACES TO BE... FOR REASONS... AND REY HAD SOME THINGS TO WORK OUT.


	17. Chapter 17

How she had managed to look near exactly the same after all these years, Kylo didn’t know.Kylo had almost assumed that the woman would have been about unrecognizable to him when he saw her for the first time.But here she was.Standing in the cafe doorway looking the exact same she did the last time he saw her.Then she had the gall to smile at him like she was nothing but happy to see him and he knew that it was all a lie. 

“I missed you, Ben,” the woman said, a gloss over her eyes that Kylo was genuinely surprised to see. SenatorLeia Organa did not cry in public. Not when her adoptive parents were killed. Not when her husband left again and again. Not when her brother was arrested. Not ever. Even if this wasn’t what most would consider crying it was close enough to jar him.

“Mom,” was all he managed to choke out before they let a server walk them to the back of the restaurant to be seated. 

They sat facing each other.Leia continued to smile, with a closed mouth, at him while he wasn’t quite sure how his expression had read to her. _Anger? Bemusement? Utterly goofy? A combination of the sorts?_

“I was really happy you called,” she started after a silence that had gone on for too long, but, Ben supposed, several years of not speaking could warrant a few more seconds. “I know you don’t want to talk to me, or maybe it’s your father and your uncle, I was never quite sure what your problem with me was.”

She _laughed_. 

Kylo could have given her an answer. The answer was: she was always busy.She always turned the other cheek when he acted out. Kylo wasn’t ready to admit a lot of his wrongdoings, but he could admit now that he was an adult that most of his childhood trysts were only desperate attempts for his parents' attention.Most of them utter failures.Until the last one got him suspended from school then shipped off to live with his uncle and he saw his parents even less. 

Instead of saying that though he just shrugged and Leia’s smile faded a little. 

“I know I wasn’t perfect, Ben.But I know your problem wasn’t with me.”

That wasn’t wrong. 

“Luke really wants to talk.Your father too,” she began and Kylo put up a hand to stop her.

“That’s not what I want to talk to you about,” Kylo said, and Leia, while being interrupted, seemed pleased he had said more than a one-word sentence. 

“It’s not?” 

“No.” he swallowed and pulled out his phone as his mother watched him with great suspicion. 

“I… need your help.” He could tell his voice was wavering. He unlocked his screen and turned the phone to face her.Leia’s gaze focused and after taking a moment to process her eyes widened and she gasped. 

“Are you getting married?” She yelped, a bit too loudly as a few of the cafe patrons turned towards them. Kylo immediately turned the phone back towards himself and looked at the photo briefly before putting it back into his pocket. Not wanting to look any longer for he was unsure if the photo he’d shown was blessed or cursed. 

It was an image of Rey. An image from Last night. She was turned away from him asleep in his bed.Except, in the photo, he took you couldn’t tell that much.His mother didn’t need to know the exact details around the photo in which he obtained. A photo he was never supposed to take let alone see with his own eyes to have the opportunity. 

It was of the back of her neck. 

He wasn’t thinking when he grabbed his phone last night. He just needed to be sure he wasn’t seeing things.A photo couldn’t _lie_.He could look at the photo or show it to someone and they would have to assure him that they saw the same thing. The initials on the back of her neck were his. Well, they _used_ to be his.The name he was born with. _Ben Solo_.And on the back of Rey’s neck, if Leia’s reaction was any confirmation, were the initials ‘B’ ’S’ etched in red.Fated in the pattern of her veins. 

“No,” he said, his sadness a bit more obvious that he would have wanted, “I… I’ve made a mistake, mom.”

Leia didn’t say anything more. She just folded her lips into a straight line and prepared herself for the worst of it. 

That’s when Kylo felt his own eyes begin to sting.When he was young he assumed his mother must have been psychic, because she always knew when he was lying and could figure out the true narrative within seconds. This was one of those times Kylo wished she could just figure it out so he wouldn’t have to say what an utter dumb ass he was out loud. 

He started at the where he could, saving her the details about how he had technically met Rey because she had been trying to rob him, but rather just saying he’d met her outside the diner in which she worked and he just had felt that there was a _reason_ they met. Her name didn’t match the initials on his neck, so there hadn’t been a reason to give her the long-winded narrative that he’d legally changed his name years ago to get out of some legal trouble.It’s not necessarily the first thing you want to tell a cute girl you meet on the street. 

Leia nodded when needed, placing her hands in front of her face and crossing her fingers, but never interrupted. 

Her name didn’t match his. She _knew_ that.It didn’t matter what initials she carried because no matter what, they weren’t a match.They both knew that and they didn’t need the reminder.But as Kylo relented his story he was adamant that something was different. That something had fit with her that had never quite fit with anyone else. 

“She didn’t want me to see,” Ben said, pulling up the photo again, “I understood why but it was eating away at me like I needed to know it.”

“Ben, there are billions of people in the world, you are going to meet some people who are just a letter off, it’s possible—“  
  
“NO.” He said, throwing his fist down at the table. This time he was the one bringing the attention to themselves but he didn’t think twice about it. “You don't understand. Something has to be wrong here.Something. I know it.”

Leia’s expression turned truly sad for the first time that morning, “Ben…”

“Her name is Rey Johnson. She’s from London. Came here for school.”

“I don’t know what you want me to do with this, Ben.”

“She’s like you, or something, her name must not be right. I just…”

“Why don’t you ask her yourself?” Leia said, “has she ever said anything about being adopted?”

“No, but-“ Kylo stopped himself. His heart churned.She probably would have mentioned something by now if that were the case but on the other hand; “she’s never mentioned her parents, really.”

“Then you can talk to her about that yourself, I don’t see how I can help you,” she started, reaching out to touch his hand, “I want too, Ben, I do, but I don’t know what you're asking me to do here.”

“I can’t tell her I’ve been lying to her,” Kylo said after a moment, his head hanging low and his hair falling into his face like a dark curtain of shame, “She’ll leave me, she’ll run away once she knows the truth.”

“If she’s your soulmate, Ben, she’ll understand, it might take some time but she’ll understand. I know that more than anyone.”  
  
“But what if she’s not, mom?” Now he knew he was sounding like a child.He knew tears were forming in the corners of his eyes. “What if we truly are just one initial apart and I still lose her for telling her everything. I’m not ready for that, mom.”

Leia’s mouth twisted again as if she knew she was about to sign up for something she fundamentally did not agree with. But something about her gaze looked resigned and Kylo felt the smallest bit of relief. 

“What do you want me to do?”

“There was a man. The man who found out who your parents were,” Kylo started as he tapped the table as if he were mapping out a much larger scheme, “I’m not sure if you still know him, or someone like him, but just to see if we can find something about her birth parents.”

“Ben, I’m not sure if this is a good idea.”

“I don’t know what else to do.”

Leia sighed.“The man who found my parents has long been deceased, but I do believe I know someone who could help.”

Kylo lit up.  
  
“But you have to promise me, that whatever I find out you will handle with the utmost care and you will tell your lady-friend the truth, okay?All of it.Even the parts I don’t know. Even the parts you were determined to take to your grave.”

She held out her palm and something about taking it felt like making a deal with the devil. “But in my own terms. In my own time. I just need to know the truth about her without chasing her away.” Kylo added quickly as Leia rolled her eyes. Now _that_ was the Leia he knew. 

As their hands fell back to their sides they looked at each other for another long moment. 

“Are you sure about this, Ben? Is it fair to go digging into her truth before you tell her yours? Are you really sure?” 

“I’m sure about her.”

“Well," she said, the smile returning, but more cautious than before, "then tell me about her.” 

Kylo didn’t go into work that day. He feigned sick and he was sure to be reprimanded for that when he came back in, but his mind was swimming and he couldn't focus. 

Leia didn’t go the rest of their breakfast without another attempt to get him to see his uncle or father again. But he wasn’t ready. That would be a mountain for another day, especially because that mountain meant disobeying Snoke and there weren’t many people alive who could live to tell that tale. 

Snoke would hear of his ‘sick’ day. Snoke would see through it instantly as well.For the last several years as Kylo’s biological parents had been out of the picture, Snoke had, in a sense, taken that place. While Kylo couldn’t say he held much love for the man, he had a certain amount of loyalty to him.Whether or not that loyalty built on fear or respect, even Kylo couldn’t answer. 

After moving in with his uncle as a teenager, Kylo began an interest in his uncle’s line of work. Investing, on paper, didn’t seem like the most interesting career, but there was a certain amount of satisfaction in seeing ideas become businesses, and successful ones at that.But with success comes greed.And greed leads to people doing really stupid things.Like framing your uncle for fraud in court when he tried firing you for the same thing than taking all his clients to a new and more wealthy firm who promised you the world if you did it. 

Who knew the world was such an awful thing to have.

Kylo had a lot of regrets in his life, but since his uncle had been in jail, he could barely find a moment to regret what he had done.Perhaps he had never truly grown up.Perhaps he was still acting out for the attention he wanted.But instead, he changed his name and cut himself off from them completely as instructed by his new mentor. 

Perhaps not all regret comes quick.Perhaps some regret only comes after the butterfly effect. The very effect that led him to this very moment of pure self-hatred.

When he collapsed back onto his couch that afternoon, the weight of the regret of the world fell upon his chest and he finally let himself cry. It was an ugly thing he was doing, guttural and feral, but uncontrolled. A part of him loved the feeling, but that may have just been his masochistic side taking over. Perhaps he was always meant to drown in self-pity. Maybe he would always sabotage everything he truly wanted.Sabotaging yourself meant never having to recognize true failure. 

Rey texted; asking if he wanted to do something that night, but he couldn’t get his hands to stop shaking long enough to reply. Or maybe that’s what he told himself so he didn’t have to admit that he wasn’t ready to talk to her yet knowing what he’d done. He slept on the couch that night, unable to go back to his bed where he knew he had ultimately betrayed the trust of the person he loved most in this world. 


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... I'm so sorry.

It was unlike Kylo to go a full day without any sort of communication so it was becoming harder and harder for Rey to keep her brain from running away with awful thoughts to what he was doing. For all she knew, he hadn’t even received her texts. He might have been so busy and stressed from work that day that when he’d arrived home in the evening he’d collapsed in exhaustion without even thinking to look at his phone. Rey kept on trying to tell herself that, but it didn’t bring her much comfort. 

_‘Is everything alright?’_ Rey texted the following morning. It now being over twenty-four hours since she’d last spoken with him directly.She hated seeing only her own messages in their text chain. She hated being that girl who couldn’t take a hint.But this wasn’t like him. He wouldn’t just ghost her like this after all this time. 

For the first time in his absence, the text bubble lit up on the screen that signified he was typing.Gripping her phone, Rey waited as those bubbled kept appearing and disappearing until they faded altogether. Rey waited another ten minutes before texting him again as all of her worries were now beginning to turn into annoyance. 

_ ‘You know I can see when you start to text, right? That’s not a new feature.’ _

The bubbles didn’t appear again right away.After a minute Rey saw them very briefly, but they faded without any real-time to type. Rey imagined him throwing his phone across the room in fear that her seeing him typing as some sort of witchcraft. That image made her smile briefly as her annoyance was now turning quickly into anger. Her phone pinged. 

_‘Come over tonight?’_ he had typed.

Rey knew she should have been a bit angrier at the blatant disregard of her questions and the fact he’d obviously been ignoring her, but there was a certain sense of relief to see he wasn’t ghosting her to the point of not ever seeing her again. At least _not yet_ , her inner voice spoke.

Rey responded only with the letter ‘k’, leading her to roll her eyes at her own pettiness. ‘That’ll show him’ she thought to herself sarcastically.He probably wouldn’t even think twice about the single letter response secretly being a jab. Most people may have taken the hint, but he probably thought she was being efficient with her time. 

She shoved her phone into her backpack before swinging it over her shoulder to head into Maz’s. Going to work had been a little easier over the semester break.It was the holiday season so that meant the diner was busy and customers tended to be a bit more generous with their tips.Tips made holidays a little more bearable. 

Though Rey liked the concept of holidays--days in which you celebrated with loved ones and exchanged gifts and ate food and sometimes both--after years of being a child from a celebration-less home she may have become bitter. Every now and then the childish dream of having a family to open presents or to prep dinners with lingered in the back of her mind, but everyone around her who had families complained about the holidays too.They complained about their family fights and all the dramatics.They complained about how Uncle Peter can’t stop drinking or how Aunt Tracey keep flirting with her sister-in-law's adult son.Rey supposed she didn’t want any part of that either.Not that she had much of a choice. But maybe a part of her just wanted the life experience of being able to tell her friends about the huge family drama that happened on thanksgiving.

She smiled to herself when she thought about making latkes though. She liked that a lot.If that is what Kylo’s holiday celebrations were, she could handle that.

When Rey made it to work she noticed the usual crowd for the afternoon. The same shop owners from the street, the construction workers who were building the new apartment complex around the corner, but there was also someone Rey had never seen before. 

In the back corner of the diner sat a well-dressed stranger. He was older, safely categorized as “old”, but not retired if his state of dress had meant anything. He stuck out in the same way Kylo had on the first night they met and Rey couldn’t help herself but stare. 

When the crowd at Maz’s was nearly the same every day, a well-dressed stranger of any age is an odd appearance.Though the man wasn’t as miserable-looking as Ben had been on that first day.The man sitting in the corner was there because he planned to be. Then he looked up at Rey with ice eyes and she dashed to the back to put on her apron. 

“Have you ever seen that man in the back of the restaurant before?” Rey asked when she saw Maz in the kitchen.

“The one older than me and perhaps life itself? No. Can’t say I had the pleasure.” Maz shrugged and returned to her work over the stove without saying anything further about her experience thus far with the man. 

Rey walked out the swinging door, making her way to his table, and took her pencil and order pad from out of her apron pocket. 

“I haven’t seen you around here before,” Rey said, putting on the most charming smile she could muster. The possibility of an extra couple bucks made adding fake charm a lot easier.

“Looks like I’m not the only person who likes digging around where I don’t belong,” the man replied and Rey had to look up from her notepad to make sure she had heard him right.By the glare he was giving her she’s assumed she had. She had no idea what that was supposed to mean coming from a stranger and she began to open her mouth to reply but nothing came out.

“Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it,” the man said after watching Rey struggle.He flippantly waved a hand in her direction and resided himself to looking at the menu like it disgusted him.“I’ll have the grits.”

“Is that going to be it?” Rey said, scribbling the request down, avoiding looking the man in the eyes again. 

“For the time being, yes.”

Without another word, Rey turned on her feet and darted towards the kitchen.The entire way she felt two ice blue eyes gazing a hole into her back and she concluded that she wasn’t going to be getting a gracious tip from the overly dressed stranger tonight. 

Rey avoided returning to the dining area until she absolutely had too.There was an unease growing in her stomach that she couldn’t quite place.She’d had rude customers before but this was something different. She resisted the urge to text Kylo about it as she pettily still wanted to feign anger a bit longer, even if the only person it was hurting was herself.When Maz slid the bowl of grits toward her, Rey accepted them with a groan of dissatisfaction then took a deep breath to gather her courage. 

When Rey reaching the booth, she placed the bowl onto the table as daintily as possible in hopes she would just appear invisible to the man. Unfortunately, she had no such luck. 

“I’d like to ask you a question, my dear Rey,” the man said, sliding the bowl to the side as if he had no intention in actually eating its contents. 

Rey looked up and her mouth dropped slightly. “How did you know my—“

“I believe you are close with my apprentice, Ben Solo,” the man leaned against his long steepled fingers for a moment then pointed to the seat across from him, signifying that he wanted her to sit. 

Rey shook her head. 

“I’m afraid I don’t sir,” she replied, grateful that the lack of acquaintance meant she didn’t have to continue this conversation.

“Excuse me, I misspoke,” the man said with the confidence of a man who did not ever misspeak, “you know him by a different name, that dreadful renaissance festival name Kylo Ren.” 

Rey’s throat closed and the man looking up at her smirked with satisfaction. A smile of a man who just located his prey. She tried to open her mouth to speak but he just pointed again, waiting for her to sit.Only this time she did. 

“Good.Now that I have your attention, how long have you known Ren?”

“You- You said another name earlier,” Rey stuttered. Holding her own hands in her lap to keep them still to try to put on the air of disinterest. 

“Ah yes, Solo.”He didn’t add anything more. 

“Who are you?” 

“It’s of little importance to you, but you can call me Snoke. It’s what most people call me.” The name rung familiar and then it clicked.   
  
“You’re Kylo’s boss?”

“So you’ve heard of me?”  
  
She’d heard nothing good, but yes, she had heard about him. 

“My apprentice, you know him as Kylo, hasn’t come to work in a couple of days. He’s been claiming sickness as his downfall which is odd for him, given the timing.” He spoke in a way that insinuated that he had concerns that Rey knew nothing of. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you? Or perhaps you yourself are the sickness?”

A fog surrounded Rey and in that instant, it was as if no one else was in the room at all. Her heart felt like it was about to stop and fly out of her chest at the same time. A wave of dizziness flooded her mind to the point of nausea. 

“I— he said he had a meeting yesterday morning,” Rey said in a whisper, still grasping her own hands to the point they were turning red.“I haven’t seen him since.”

“Perhaps he did, but it wasn’t at my company.” The man glared but leaned in further. “But he’s been lying to you about a lot it seems like, so perhaps there was no meeting at all.”

“He hasn’t—“ she started but couldn't finish.

“Ah, charming girl, no wonder he’s so smitten with you.” The man brought the bowl of grits back in front of him and stuck a spoon in it so casually it was as if they were only talking about the weather. “You believe every lie he’s ever told you. For one, you somehow bought that whole ‘Kylo Ren’ shtick.When I asked the boy to adopt a new name I didn’t fathom he’d ever pick something so... fantastical.”He rolled his eyes as if Kylo was currently disappointing him from wherever he was. 

“What do you mean by _‘adopt a new name?_ ’” Rey’s whisper became sharper, a fit of anger boiling behind it that seemed to please the man called Snoke. 

“He got himself into some legal trouble a few years ago now. He was young and hungry like we all were at one point. I did everything in my power to help him. He’s so young and talented, I didn’t want him to waste his prime years rotting in prison. Certainly, you can understand that? I care for the boy.”

Rey’s mouth tasted like bile as she couldn't help but believe every word that spilled from that man’s mouth. 

“I don’t believe yo-“ she tried to say regardless. 

“Don’t bother, sweetheart,” he said over her, becoming calmer by the minute as Rey’s soul felt like it was crumbling to pieces beside her.“Don’t fight it, you know it’s true. Ben Solo has been lying to you the moment you met and you fell for every single bit of it.I’m only here because he would have never told you, and I don’t like it when my associates play games with people like this. It’s a bad look for our company. It will only land him back in hot water and I’ve been trying my best to keep that troubled boy in line. He’s been rather crue—“

“Is that his name?”

Snoke raised an eyebrow like he was actually surprised for the first time during their conversation. Like he was surprised that this was the part she cared about. 

“Pardon?”

“Is that his name!? _Ben Solo?_ ” Rey’s vocal cords tried to yell but all that came out was a feral forced rasp. She clutched the edge of the table trying her best to keep steady but her lip still quivered as the world spin around her. This had to be a dream. This had to be some sick nightmare. This couldn’t have been real. 

“Does the name, in particular, mean something to you?” Snoke said, still surprised. 

“Fucking _bullshit,”_ she spat and losing the last bit of control of herself she knocked that damned bowl of grits from the table and watched it shatter on the floor. 

“Rey?” Maz called out after hearing the noise but Rey was already running out the door holding back tears and doing everything in her power to resist screaming. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So everything about this fic became 1000 times more angsty then I intended but I swear it works out? I don't do sadness??  
> It would be a true Reylo fic if Kylo didn't fuck up somehow.  
> At least I can start calling him Ben now


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorrryyyyy

Suddenly, he’d started thinking of himself as Ben. Not only suddenly, but _willingly_. Without cringing. For the first time in years, he thought of himself as Ben Solo first. He was lying down on his couch, where he’d spent the better part of the last 48 hours, after groggily going over to his kitchen to get something to eat, being utterly okay with the idea of being Ben. It was such a casual transition. An oddity to be okay with. 

He hadn’t heard from his mother since their breakfast aside from a single text he didn’t bother responding too that read, ‘I sent her information along. I hope you know what you're doing.’ The last part more of a warning than a question of his intelligence.

Of course, he knew what he was doing.Of course, he even knew it was destined to explode in his face and ruin everything good he’d managed to build in his relationship. But he needed to know before it ate him alive.If there was even the slightest possibility they were actually meant for each other he needed to know or he needed to make his peace. Though, a part of him knew he’d never be able to make his peace though. If the investigation proved fruitless he’d probably forever ache that the perfect woman was only one initial away from being his. 

His chest tightened and he pinched his brow to try to relieve the tension that had subsided there. All of this was going to be nuclear and he knew it but still, he went and did all of it. Rey hadn’t texted him again after agreeing to come over earlier in the day, she had probably been busy at work, but he wasn’t sure if she needed to be picked up or if she was going to take the bus. He thought about texting her to ask but at that moment a thunderous knock came at the door and Ben jolted up, starring towards the sound like death was about to come for him. 

“…Rey?” he said as he cautiously approached the stairs to the floor level entrance. 

“Let me in!” she called back and Kylo was a little relieved though she sounded less than. He trotted down the stairs and when he opened to door it revealed a snow-drenched Rey in only a long sleeve shirt, jeans, and an apron. Shivering, her skin was so pale it was almost blue.

“What the hell, Rey? Did you run here?” he said before coming to the realization that something must have been very wrong for her to show up in this state without warning. 

“No, I ran part of the way here before I decided I didn’t want to die,” she bit back as she stormed into the apartment.She didn’t even bother taking off her shoes. She only came inside because of the warmth, not because she had any intention of staying very long. 

“Let’s go upstairs and sit down, I’ll get you a blanket or something,” he tried to soothe but Rey just glowered blankly ahead. Then the idea crossed him. _Had Leia contacted her?_ He wouldn’t have put it past his mother but if Leia wanted to reconnect with him he doubted she’d want to ruin his life so quickly after regaining contact.

“I don’t need a damn blanket, Ben,” she said through chattering teeth, which meant she clearly did need one. 

“Are you hungry? Do you want soup” I think I have some cans somewhere in the pantry—“

“Are you not even going to deny it?” Her voice cracked and her shivering icy exterior began to melt from the facade it was. From fury to misery. 

“Deny what?” The feeling that he swallowed lead was growing. He’d been so flustered when she walked in he didn’t even notice what she’d called him. _Ben_.

“You lied to me.”

Kylo’s world came crashing down around him. She knew. He replayed the conversation in his mind and heard ‘ _Ben_ ’ loud and clear spill from her lips. There was no mistaking it. 

“Where did you hear that name? What do you know?”

“I don’t know what I know! Either everything or nothing at all. You tell me.” She rammed a finger at his chest and that alone was enough to knock the wind out of him. 

“Who told you that?” Heat began to rise in his own body. Trying to keep his voice low, he could sense treacherous fire behind it. 

“Does it matter? It wasn’t you!” That was all the confirmation she needed. Kylo didn’t need to know how much more she knew or what else needed explaining. In one simple question, everything was confirmed for her and she walked back towards the door. 

Without thinking he leaped in front of her, barring Rey from the exit. “Rey, you have to tell me who told you that. I can promise you, it’s important.”

“I don’t owe you anything.” She pushed her small body against his, trying to push him aside, and though she was stronger than she looked it still wasn’t enough to move him.Before too long, her efforts gained no progress and she collapsed into his side in a fit of tears.

“I promise you, I can explain,” he said, trying to clam his voice but sensing it was still sharp. “You won’t like a lot of it, I know it, but I promise I never wanted to hurt you. I thought I was protecting you from something you didn’t need to have any part in. I didn’t think any of this would matter.If I knew it was going to matter I would have told you sooner!”

Rey back away and they stared at each other for a long moment.Thoughts raced in Kylo’s mind as he flipped between hating Ben Solo and knowing Ben was the only chance he had to keep her after this massive fuck up. 

“Rey, I have to ask you something.”She looked back at him like he hadn’t the right. Which he supposed he didn’t. “Is there a reason why my name—my birth name— is there a reason it means so much to you?”

Rey grimaced. The question was bait and both of them knew it.“I need to leave,” she replied, beginning to push against him again. 

“Please, don’t,” Kylo said softly, letting himself be moved regardless of his words, “you know we’re supposed to work through this. I know I fucked up but I didn’t know. If you had let me know earlier I would have told you the truth—“

“Let you know what?” Rey said and Kylo opened his mouth to answer but he couldn’t say aloud his betrayal, “who my soulmate is? The initials I carry? Are you trying to blame me for this?”

“No! That’s not what I meant.”

“That’s what it sounded like,” she snapped. Then Rey’s eyes changed as everything clicked into place and Kylo watched her heartbreak again. “How…how do you know it would have mattered? If I told you.”

He was drowning again. 

“You said you never saw!”  
  
“Rey, after the other night, the bandage was slipping, and I just…”  
  
“You just— WHAT? You promised me you didn’t see anything!”

“I had to know, Rey.I know you feel this thing too, that something was different about us. That we broke this age-old system somehow. We’re not just two strangers passing each other in the night. You know this is what all the other people talk about.” 

“Other people?” she growled. 

“Soulmates, Rey.”  
  
“I still don’t match you, Ben,” she said with a hiss that would have insinuated her disgust if she had matched him.

“Maybe not, but we should look into that... I already talked too-“

Rey’s jaw dropped and a new form of rage began to run through her veins. “What the fuck did you just say?”

“I didn’t want to say anything until I knew for sure—“ He couldn’t stop. He couldn’t stop himself from being the massive idiot he was born to be, and alas, he continued, “but maybe you’re name is different, there is a chance, it happened with my mom and—“

“You can NO right to do that.” She was shaking and Kylo flinched. Neither of them spoke again. Kylo stepped aside and she fled passed him slamming the door behind her. 

The only noise Kylo could manage was a muffled sob before falling to his knees. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was hard for me to get through, I just want to get to the happy times again.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! I really want to try to finish this puppy before NANOWRIMO! This was originally supposed to be a short 40k story but right now I'm assuming it's going to be around 45. So we are reaching the end! Thanks for joining on this journey

Rey’s heart pounded in her chest as she covered herself in blankets upon reaching her home that evening.The room spun and bile stung the back of her throat. The humiliation that burned like lava through her body scalded her until everything felt numb. She was alone. Truly alone.

Even in a room she'd shared. She was alone. 

Rose was gone. Everyone was gone. Only the gentle buzzing of her phone kept her tethered to the earth enough to not completely disappear.She resisted sticking her hand out towards to sound, knowing she would be both furious and devastated to see who wouldn’t stop messaging her. 

If it wasn’t Ben it would break her heart.

If it was Ben she’d throw her phone out the window and hope she’d never see it again. 

It wasn’t even _her_ phone, not really, it was _his. He_ paid for it. Nothing was really hers. Not even her name was hers. Not to him.

She shuddered under the blankets again, not letting her brain go down that rabbit hole again. She hadn’t even had the chance to look into it herself, to tell him everything herself. He’d just assumed that—

Her fingers grazed the back of her neck. While the mark didn’t leave a noticeable lift or scarring, she still knew the letters that lay there. Still knew they remained the same. The branding she was born with, like some sort of cattle. As if fate made them all be players in their game knowing that the humans below couldn’t be trusted to make their decisions on their own. She wanted to scratch it off and be free from this misery. 

“How am I supposed to be a part of someone else when I don’t even know who I am,” Rey muttered. These markings were supposed to make things easier, not present you with an identity crisis.Her mind drifted back to Ben. _Ben_. That’s who he was. 

He’d lied to her. For whatever reason, he had lied. He had come into her life, a wolf disguised as a sheep, only now to be the very force that could change her life forever.

But a part of her knew. She knew the whole time. There wasn’t going to be a person after Ben. He’d joked about running away together, ignoring what the fates had to say, and just a couple days ago Rey may have seriously taken the offer.Even now, that part of her wanted to forget and forgive everything and run back to him. 

She hated herself for it. She was weak. Weak and desperate for love and affection and belonging because her damned parents couldn’t even bother sparing any.  They couldn’t even bother giving her a proper family name. 

Wishing sleep upon herself that would not come, she trashed once more in desperate confusion.   
  
_This was supposed to make things easier. Fate was supposed to take the stress out of these things. Nothing was in our control, our destiny was decided the moment we were born._

How small that made her feel. How powerless. 

Her bedroom door creaked open, and Rey stilled herself. 

“Rey, are you awake?” Rose whispered, pattering across the floor to her bed. 

“No.” 

“What on earth happened? Maz called and said you bolted at the end of your shift in tears.” Rey heard the subtle squeak of Rose’s mattress as she plopped down upon it. 

Rey didn’t answer. 

“Do you want to talk about it?”

_Yes._ “No.”

“Is that the only world you know how to say?”The bedside lamp was on and Rey could see the dim light through her blankets, Rose leaned over to click it off.The room now in complete darkness and silence. 

“Now I can’t see you, and you can’t see me, just tell the dark,” Rose said, in a voice just about a whisper. 

“I think he’s my soulmate.”

Rey heard Rose’s breath hitch from across the room but she didn’t respond. 

“He… He lied to me. I don’t know. He’s involved in some stuff at work so he wouldn’t or couldn’t tell me his name and… his name’s Ben.”

“Kylo’s?” Rose said after a pause. Her voice a conscious not a critic.

“Yeah…” Rey took in the silence. The darkness helped. “He started to look into my parents because he had his suspicions that something was wrong… or right about me--us.”

“With your permission?” 

“No. I never even told him about them.”

“Oh.” Rey could sense the tension in her friend’s voice, but Rose was restrained, for now, knowing Rey just needed to be listened too right now more than anything. 

“The worst part is that one some level, I understand.” Her voice cracked, on the verge of breaking, “If I had my suspicions, I may have done it too. But I was just so blindsided. His Boss of all people told me, he stormed into Maz’s, told me all sorts of horrible things and Kylo—er—-Ben didn’t even deny them.”Then something clicked. “Why would his boss do that? What did he have to gain did by trying to hurt me like that? He wasn’t trying to protect me. Or Ben. I just don’t understand what the hell happened tonight.”

“Do you really think he’s it? Your soulmate?”

Again, no emotion either way. Just a question posed to the night.A query for the stars.

Rey peeked her head out from under the covers and turned away from Rose to face the window.She looked out at the night sky, to where the Gods or Fates lived, and she knew that tonight wasn’t the last time she’d see Ben Solo. She knew the world had other plans for them. 

Her phone buzzed again, but she didn’t move.

“Do… do you want me to check it for you?” Rose said, sensing Rey’s inability to see it for herself.

“Just let me know if it’s going to make me even more miserable.”

Rose chuckled and reached for the phone.Rey looked over her shoulder to try to read her reaction, but Rose’s poker face was impeccable until her brow furrowed. 

“It’s a number that you don’t have on your phone.”

“What’s it say?”

_“Hello Rey, my name is Leia Organa and I would like to arrange a meeting with you at your earliest convenience. I believe you are close to my son, Ben Solo.“_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When your son fucks up, mama steps in.


End file.
